


Six Ruin's Enlightenment

by cactass



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Blood and Gore, Childhood Trauma, Cuddling & Snuggling, Djeeta probably has some daddy issues, Everyone has some daddy issues, F/M, Lap pillows, Lyria is a Really Good Girl, Rosetta is the crew's token mum friend, Some stalker vibes, from fighting idk, guild wars happens, hand-holding, punny sex dreams, seox is emo i guess, then lewd things happen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-16 13:37:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15438186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cactass/pseuds/cactass
Summary: “Predicting the clan's downfall, Seox's father entrusted his son's future...To a skyfarer who was a longtime friend.”Seox finally puts the pieces together and pledges himself to Djeeta's protection.





	1. Pledge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated E for Eventual (/Upcoming Smut)
> 
> this is straight so i'm already out of my depth plus i can't write so whatever, enjoy the fluff 'n' such
> 
> probably a bit OOC, but I SUPER recommend reading through his fates if you haven't, because I'm trying to expand on them a bit here

 

 

 _“Predicting the clan's downfall, Seox's father entrusted his son's future..._  
_To a skyfarer who was a longtime friend.”_

 

Seox was a monster.

He was a monster, and monsters didn’t deserve love. He didn’t deserve to love, or to be loved. That’s what he had always believed. So much so that the idea that he could possibly love had been so far removed from his psyche that his reddened face, hidden behind his mask as she smiled, was merely an expression of his anxiety. So was the pounding of his heart silenced beneath his armour.

 

Then, there was her.

 

He had sworn to protect her from the day he had realised who she was to him. There had been a knock at his door only a few weeks after their visit to Karm, the (once) home to his clan. Caught off guard, he’d fumbled for his mask, before announcing a gruff “enter” to whoever was waiting. Djeeta had appeared in his room, clutching a faded letter to her chest and sporting a different look of determination than the one she usually showed to all her adversities. Instead, she appeared anxious, nervous, a look Seox understood too well. As usual, though, he didn’t know how to approach the subject. He remained silent behind his mask, waiting, and watching her push herself to get through what was making her so uncomfortable.

“I need to take another look at that journal,” she said simply. The confident authority behind the captain’s voice was at odds with her unusually meek body language.

Seox’s eyes betrayed him, flicking automatically to the desk draw containing that man’s journal. Fortunately for him, he had the mask. _Un_ fortunately for him, Djeeta seemed to notice. That, or she determined its location on her own. In hindsight, he definitely preferred the latter option to the idea that she had either developed a psychic link, or become so aware of his mannerisms that the mask didn’t help him hide. At the time, the apparent response scared the shit out of him and he stepped in front of the desk, intuitively guarding the only thing he could admit to himself had value to him.

Djeeta looked dejected. Her shoulders slumped.

“Sorry,” she murmured to her feet, “I should have asked properly.”

She lifted her head back up to look him in the eyes. Or, more accurately, into the mask.

“May I? I won’t damage it, or take it. I just need to check something for myself. I won’t even read through it.” She smiled, knowing that she had hit the nail right on the head.

Seox’s heart twanged. He nodded, and stepped to the side. Djeeta slid into the desk chair, pulled the book from the drawer, and placed the letter she had brought beside it. Standing beside her, Seox was definitely not freaking out. In reality, he had no qualms about letting the captain touch the journal. The contents were sensitive to him, and he’d have preferred them to stay private, but he had to right to say no to the same captain that had helped him find the damn thing in the first place. That, and she had allowed a monster such as himself a place in his crew. He owed her much more than a peek in some journal written by a man who had both appeared and disappeared once again during a period of his childhood he would prefer to forget. Not that he could afford to forget it, either. The memories were part of his punishment.

Regardless, his heart was still racing. Partly from someone having their nose pressed up to something precious to him, eyes squinting at the old lettering, and partly from standing so close to another person for too long. That was definitely the biggest issue at hand. Most people just made him uncomfortable, even angry, but being near the attractive ones could leave him sweating bullets. His mind flicked through various explanations as he stood cross-armed, idly keeping an eye on the girl as she compared the letter and journal.

 

And then Djeeta’s heart crumbled. It was brief, like a flash of lightning, but Seox had honed his reflexes like a blade since before he could walk. It was especially clear to him that something was wrong when she gave a slightly strained laugh.

 

“I guess it _was_ his writing after all, huh?” she mused, as though it didn’t surprise her at all, and nothing had just happened.

Seox stayed silent in his confusion, watching intently from behind the mask.

“How long ago was this written?”

Silence.

“He left one kid behind already, but I guess he left you in the dust too.”

Silence.

“It really shouldn’t surprise me. We keep finding clues like this all over the sky. Uncanny, really, like he knew where we’d be.”

Silence.

“Hey.”

She turned slowly, her gaze piercing through his mask. Her smile was soft, but her voice was tinged with an echo of loneliness.

 

“Did he ever mention me?”

 

Seox’s eyes widened in surprise as the pieces fell into place. He was an idiot not to have picked up on it faster. The skyfarer that had saved him during nothing more than a pit stop on his journey to the end of the sky. The man that left his daughter behind to continue his travels to the end of the sky, and the girl journeying to Eustalacia to meet her father based on nothing more than a letter and a dream.

Swallowing his shame, he pulled the mask off with one hand, and dropped to his knee before her.

 

* * *

 

* * *

 

 

Djeeta stared at the erune on his knee before her in surprise. She was getting used to this behaviour from certain other devoted crew members, but this was _Seox_ , the socially anxious and eternally pissed asshole. On the floor next to her. Swearing his protection to her and vowing that he would keep her safe. Unsure how to properly respond, she eventually burst into laughter.

“Idiot,” she laughed, reaching to gently bat him over the ear. “I don’t need protecting.”

It was true, Seox mused. The girl seated in front of him could hold her own even against the eternals in combat. Still, he had felt that this was the right thing to do. His path to making things right. The daughter of the man who had pulled him out of despair as a boy was in front of him, it was all he could do to offer his all to stay by her side and keep her safe.

From there, he’d kept a respectful distance, but always made sure he knew where the captain was. This didn’t go unnoticed by her, or select crew members. Most recognised his brooding silence in the shadows, but quickly dismissed it as part of his character. Those who had been with Djeeta from the start, however, were growing suspicious. Katalina always felt his presence nearby, and glare at him as a brief warning. He didn’t blame her. He would be suspicious too, if he was constantly noticing the eyes of someone such as himself directed towards someone he was protective towards. Actually, in her place, he would have attacked himself on sight before asking questions. Katalina, however, seemed to just keep a wary eye in his direction. The others weren’t as sharp at picking up his location, but usually could sense him nearby, and usually looked uncomfortable. Rackham in particular always seemed to elicit an “oi, oi oi oi, don’t tell me that shady cat is lurking around again.”

Lyria, on the other hand, had never acted as though he was dangerous. Seox couldn’t be certain if it was just that she was daft, or if her strong intuition let her know he meant no harm, but either way it was just _unsettling_ how she would always respond to his presence with a sunny smile. At first, she had tried to drag him out whenever she noticed him in an attempt to make him mingle with the group, but had eventually stopped after seemingly realising that forcing into situations that made him so flustered was only doing more harm than good. Sometimes, though, she brought him snacks. He would frown at her and scorn her, but she would only laugh and smile brighter before retreating towards her place at Djeeta’s side.

Truthfully, he wasn’t actually trying to hide. He wanted to give her space. He just wasn’t very good at managing interpersonal boundaries. For Djeeta, it was honestly getting a little irritating after several weeks of being watched. He never overstepped, and even in combat, it was clear that he had no desire to hold her back so much as ensure her back was covered. He let others tend to her wounds, but from the corner of her eye, she could spot him glaring daggers at anyone who made her wince in pain even slightly.

_Irritating?_ He hadn’t actually spoken to her since he’d dropped to his knees before her. He wasn’t exactly talkative to begin with, but now he seemed to view himself as some kind of shadow in her service. _Wait, no. That’s Jamil._ She’d just described Jamil to herself, except Jamil didn’t follow her like some kind of stalker without giving the crew any reason to trust him. She could tolerate Jamil’s behaviour for being young, too. Seox wasn’t young (she guessed), just a fuckwit.

No, she wasn’t irritated. She was pissed off and she could feel the walls that she, Lyria and Vyrn had worked to break down building back up stronger than ever. She hadn’t seen his face since that night, only the red glint in the eyes of his mask. Somehow, it made her lonely, too. She thought they’d grown closer, but he felt so distant now. He needed space, and she understood that, but as a boy he had known her _father_ and she wanted to know more. She didn’t even know how old he was, for all she knew, they had met before she was even conceived. She didn’t just want to know about her dad, though. She wanted to know more about the boy the man had saved, and the man the boy had grown into.

_He definitely grew._ Djeeta couldn’t imagine Seox as a child, even though he was acted like one. _He couldn’t have been born like this… He was probably some kind of runt kitten._

She snorted at the idea before slamming her breakfast down on the table. The Grandcypher’s shared dining area was still empty. Dawn had barely broken, so most of the crew was still asleep, and those crazy enough to be awake were probably off doing some intense early morning training. For Djeeta, she had woken up a sweaty mess after a _bizarre_ dream that she couldn’t remember, but had left her with an uncomfortable tug at her abdomen that left her too grumpy and restless to stay in bed.

 

“Oi,” she grumbled, seemingly speaking to her cereal. “Don’t pull this crap, nobody’s here.”

One of the shadows in the corner of the room where the dim morning light was yet to reach moved. Seox stepped forward, arms crossed. As usual, he was masked. Djeeta pointed to the space on the other side of the bench. He hesitated momentarily, before moving into place, and sliding into the seat across from her.

Unbeknownst to him, a stray beam of morning light glinted across his mask, causing the captain to wince.

He made an indignant noise and reached to get the mask back when Djeeta reached over and ripped it from his face, but she stopped him with the kind of glare that only someone who’d slept roughly could manage.

“Get over it, that thing’s too shiny,” she muttered, and placed it on the table beside her resting arm. He tried to make another grab for it, but she slapped his hand away, before returning her focus to her cereal.

He slumped and faced away, propping his face up with his hand and elbow on the table. He sat in silence, listening to her eat, but observing her from the side of his vision.

Even tired and eating, she was cute, not that he noticed. She hadn’t bothered to do anything about her bed hair, and pieces of it, still damp with night sweat, were sticking up at impossible angles. She wasn’t wearing pyjamas so much as baggy old clothes, and her eyelids looked heavy. A red mark from her pillow still hadn’t faded from her cheek. She looked tired, and she looked bitchy, a state Seox related to surprisingly strongly.

“Stare all you want, I’m not going anywhere. And neither are you until you tell me what this stalker shit is about.”

He lowered his arm and turned to face her, locking his uncovered eyes with hers.

“I’m protecting you.”

She rolled her eyes. “By following me around silently and freaking out everyone nearby? Doesn’t seem like it to me.”

Seox frowned. “If there’s something you want me to do better, I-“

Djeeta slammed her spoon onto the table.

“No, damnit! I? You? I...” She buried her face in her hands, exasperated and unable to find the right words. “I just want you to speak to me, alright? You’re my friend, damnit, not my protector or stalker or whatever it is you think you’re doing. I get enough of that crap already.”

Seox watched, stunned, as she sighed and lowered her hands to pick up the bowl and raise it to her face. She finished gulping down the last of the milk right as Lyria slid down onto the bench beside her, looking sleepy but already chatting away. The room seemed to get brighter, almost like the sun had been waiting for her arrival.

“Morning Djeeta! Morning Seox!”

Djeeta sighed one last time and slid the mask back over to him before standing up. She ruffled Lyria’s bed hair briefly with a smile, and turned to leave. If anyone was going to do break down Seox’s walls, Lyria was the one for the job. Besides, she needed to get dressed. And a shower. That would be nice…

She paused, and turned back to face him once more, thinking about her rough night again.

“You don’t… watch me sleep, do you?”

He shook his head. Well, not technically. He usually waited across from the closed door, watching for unwelcome intruders.

“If you say so,” she shrugged, and turned away for the final time before walking back to her room.

Seox, on the other hand, was lost. He couldn’t get up and follow without upsetting the girl across from him, but he didn’t know how to deal with her either.

“I had the craziest dream,” she blabbered. “Vyrn ate too many apples that he became one, and then another Vyrn appeared, and the first one was yelling _I ain’t no apple!_ But the second one took a bite anyway, and then Katalina appeared, and she…”

Seox gradually tuned her out to the point that he didn’t hear anything she said. He didn’t notice that she’d stopped speaking, either, until she waved a hand in front of his face.

“Seox? What about you? What did you dream about?” she asked, eager for his conversation.

He shrugged. Truthfully, he hadn’t slept. He rarely did. Lyria looked dejected, causing him a brief pang of guilt as they sat in silence for a short while until she spoke back up.

“You know, Seox?” the girl started cautiously, watching him for a response. “I know you don’t want to respond, but you don’t need to be so alone and sad all the time. So! I’m going to sit here and talk to you anyway, how does that sound?” She grinned a wholesome smile at the masked figure across from her.

He stayed silent, glad his expression was hidden behind his mask. But as the rest of the crew gradually made their way into the dining area in their various states of morning disarray, he felt himself unwind listening to her chat away about her innocent dreams of Vyrn and apples.

Her presence was much like the captain’s, he decided, only more peaceful. Where Djeeta radiated determination, Lyria radiated the tranquillity of a sunny blue sky. The expanse of the blue sky always made him feel exposed, like it was tearing away the layers he had around himself and making him crave the feeling of walls around him. Lyria had the same feeling, but somehow, it wasn’t unpleasant. He’d seen firsthand that even primals took solace in her presence, and when they parted, he found himself wondering exactly what it was about her that could leave him feeling so comfortable.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> by the way, in my mind, seox is a big grumpy scottish fold cat
> 
> (+ i actually have someone willing to beta but i'm too embarrassed at my writing but i need to improve somehow so i may as well upload it, yell at me or something thanks)


	2. Six-Ruin Fist

Seox found himself squatting across the hall, watching her door. She’d asked him not to keep doing this, but he’d grown used to it quickly, and attempts to do anything but play guard dog left him confused as to what he normally did with his time. So, there he sat, thinking about what the hell to say to her. She’d said to talk to her, but about what? What was there to talk to him about? Seox was a man of few words. Few, stuttered words, and fewer poorly constructed sentences. He just didn’t know what people wanted him to say, and could barely speak without his face hidden. On the plus side, he’d found that the silence made him menacing, and being menacing meant less people would approach him. He liked it that way. He basked in the solitude, because with nobody there, you didn’t need to fumble for the right words. You didn’t need to worry that you’d hurt anybody with the power you were born with, and left you free to hone the power further without worrying over casualties. It was that same power that had earned him a place in the Eternals as one of the most feared warriors in the sky.

He was still lost in these thoughts when Djeeta’s door creaked and he spotted her head poke around, searching.

“C’mon, I know you’re there. You’re free to come in.”

He complied, shutting the door behind him. Djeeta watched, slightly amused, as Seox simply stood in front of her closed door, looking like he didn’t know what he was supposed to be doing there.

“It’s fine,” she said, “I’d rather have you in here to keep me company then sitting out there making everyone’s skin crawl. Don’t you have better things to do?”

He shrugged. He’d just been wondering the same thing. “Train, mostly. Sometimes visit Karm to tend to—“ He froze. “Things.”

Djeeta watched him shift uncomfortably, her interest piqued. She cocked an eyebrow . “Things?” she smirked.

“Things.”

“Things being?”

Seox didn’t bother responding, so she stepped forward and swiped his mask in one quick motion, something that was beginning to become routine to her. He yelped indignantly and made a pass for it, but she shook her head and held it behind her as she took a few teasing steps backwards.

“You can have it back when you talk to me,” she teased as she flopped onto her bed.

She nodded towards the desk a short distance away, indicating that he was free to sit so she wouldn’t have to watch him just _stand there_. He obliged, setting himself tentatively down in the old wooden chair. Djeeta cocked an eyebrow.

“Things…?” she pushed again.

Seox grimaced and focussed his attention on a coffee ring stained into the hardwood of the desk. “Yeah. A garden. What of it?”

Djeeta held back a laugh. _That_ was all he was so worried about saying? “What did you grow? Vegetables?”

He shook his head. “Hedges.”

 

 _Hedges_.

 

She caved and burst into laughter that echoed into the hall outside. “Hedges? _What the hell?_ That’s so-“ she fumbled for the right expression. Hilarious? Nope, she didn’t judge people like that, most of her crew was quirkier anyway. Adorable? Maybe. The image of Seox in a sunhat trimming hedges invaded her mind. He was probably meticulous about his lawn, too.

“Suburban!” she cackled at the image and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “Sorry, sorry. I just never imagined you to be so _suburban_.”

Seox scowled at her, fists clenched, missing the feeling of the talon-like claws he usually equipped himself with. “It was for training.”

“Training?”

“It helped me refine my skills. Now I can carve a man’s throat with precision.”

“Precision!” Djeeta guffawed. “So you made shapes then?”

He looked away abashedly.

 _Oh my god, he actually shapes hedges_.

“What shapes?”

“C-cats, mostly. Can I have my mask back?”

“Sorry, I lied. Misled. Answering one question isn’t talking to me.” She winked and poked her tongue out briefly as she rolled onto her side to face him properly, and hugged the mask to her chest like a teddy bear. “What else did you do there?”

Seox slumped, resigned to his fate. At least it was better than sitting in the hall, no matter how much she was frustrating him. He watched her as she closed her eyes to listen to him relay stories about his childhood in Karm. Sometimes she nodded or hummed in response, eager to just let him speak, other times her eyes flew open in shock at a piece of particularly brutal training they put him through before he could barely speak, only to soon relax and resume listening peacefully.

“And then, you know the rest.” His voice turned dark. He’d let his guard down and get caught up in talking to her, but he’d spent his whole life stewing on those days. He wasn’t going to discuss them. “Then _he_ showed up. He wasn’t around for long, but he took me in like I was his own kid. Guess that’s what my father probably asked of him, but looking back now that I’ve run into you, he probably saw a little of his own kid in me. Not that we would have been anything alike, you were probably all sunshine and daisies when he left.”

Djeeta simply grunted in response. She wasn’t sure what her father had thought of her, but her mind wondered back to her own childhood. Zinkenstill was small, tiny even by Phantagrande standards, so she’d spent a lot of time picking fights with kids twice her size. She’d get home battered and bruised and bleeding from scrapes on her knees. Elderly women from the village would visit her home and scorn her as they tended to the small child’s wounds. She would pretend it wouldn’t hurt as they disinfected cuts and scrapes, but her face would give her away, and the women would hold her in their arms like her parents couldn’t. Sometimes they would fix her dinner but she would go to sleep, alone except for her best (dragon) friend, in her father’s empty house, just to get up the next day and pick more fights. Some days, she couldn’t find anyone to scuffle with (the older boys off tending to their family farms and such), but she and Vyrn would simply run off into the forest to practice swordplay against the small monsters that had seemed so big to her then. This got her in even more trouble in the village, but knowing who she took after, nobody ever tried to stop her.

Seox interrupted her reminiscing. She was surprised he was still talking to her, she’d never heard more than a few disconnected words from him in one go, and now he’d talked with her until late in the night. It made her smile.

“So I guess for that short time, that man acted like a second father to me.”

Her smile froze.

“I don’t want that,” she muttered quietly at Seox’s implication about shared parenthood.

He tilted his head at her, confused. Had he hit a nerve? She quickly corrected herself, however.

“I don’t mean I’m jealous or anything, I’ve heard all sorts of stories about him, it’s just what you’re implying would make us….” Her face turned pink as she trailed off and she buried it in her pillow. “Go on, you did better than I thought,” she said, holding the mask out in his general direction. “Nothing’s going to happen to me so go get some sleep in your own bed instead of the floor outside for once.”

Seox took the mask tentatively, and she hand she’d held it in made a shooing motion. He still couldn’t see her face, but he figured she wanted to be left alone to sleep. He closed the door behind him as he left, and, remembering what she’d said, made his way back to his own small room on the ship. He was still worried he’d hurt her somehow, and had spent so long keeping an eye on her that the space felt empty and lonely, a feeling he’d normally rejoice in. It gnawed at him, keeping him awake, but at some point he finally fell asleep.

 

* * *

 

 

_“Six ruin fist me,” she begged, writhing on top of him. He obeyed, but ignored the disturbing pun for something tamer, first pushing one finger into her rear, then another. She groaned and grinded harder as she bit down on the soft flesh of his neck, eliciting a deep moan from him in response. He wasn’t sure where his pants were, but that didn’t matter when she slid herself on top of him and tightened around both his dick and the fingers hooked into her ass. “Yeah, babe,” she purred as he fucked her gate of sin with his cock and her gate of demons with his fingers. They pressed tightly into each other, breathing in sync as they pushed closer to the edge, each seeking release. She groaned as she came, grinding him hard and fast to ride it out and making him threaten to spill over._

_“C’mon,” she whined, her tight warmth begging for him to fill her. Then she screamed like a heavenly howl. “ **Trim my fucking hedges!** ”_

 

He awoke with a jolt, gasping for air and covered in a think sheen of sweat. His head was pounding with the afterimage of the disturbing dream, but his stomach was still warm from the warmth of her in his dream, and… sticky?

_Oh god, did I seriously…_

He lifted the sheet and grimaced at the sight, confirming his concerns. It wasn’t just the disturbing comment that had woken him, it was his own ejaculate.

He buried his face in his hands. _I fucking hate myself._

It wasn’t like it was his first sex dream, or even the most disturbing thing his subconscious had thrown at him. Far from it, even. When you’ve murdered a whole clan, the things you’ve seen lend to tend to dreams much more sickening, and the dreams only served to fuel the flames of his own self-loathing. What disgusted him more than his own body, though, was who the dream had featured. Why had it been Djeeta, when he’d sworn to himself that he wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her? How was he supposed to protect her from others, protect her from the world, when she wasn’t even safe from him in his own dreams? 

His head spun as he got up to look for something to wipe himself off with. Failing that, he just used the already-dirtied sheet. _It’s not like anyone comes in here anyway, it’s just me having to live in the filth._ That out of the way, he searched a shirt to cover the raw red patch on his stomach left from his thorough scrubbing with a dry sheet. Then proper pants, he wasn’t going to let anyone catch him in the comfortable clothes he slept in free-ball. He stretched briefly before exiting, making certain the door was locked behind him.

He wasn’t the first to sneak into her room that night. He slipped in like a shadow, the door not even clicking as it closed back into place. Nobody able to see him, he smiled at the sight before him. She was sound asleep, curled around the red lizard and hugging it like a teddy bear. Soft breaths escaped her lips as she slept. The lizard snored away, occasionally murmuring things about apples, the various crew member’s names, and that he wasn’t no lizard. Beside the two of them, Lyria had snuck into the bed as well, presumably after some kind of nightmare. The small girl now slept peacefully under the blankets, her face tucked into Djeeta’s neck and her knees curled into the small of her back. The sight honestly took his breath away, a picture of the warmth he had never known.

 

_She’s beautiful._

 

The realisation was sudden, and as soon as it hit him, he tried to force it away. It wasn’t _her_ that was beautiful (although, he couldn’t forgive himself for thinking this either, so he settled on it being that it wasn’t _the fact that_ she was beautiful) so much as it was a beautiful _scene_ before him that was warming his chest. It actually made him a little unsettled. Yearning? No, he had accepted that these things would never be for him. Jealousy? Definitely not. The disgust he felt towards the lizard always had and always would be because Vyrn was an obnoxious little twat.

Still, guilt shook his bones as he tried to suppress the memory of what he’d done, even if it had been subconsciously. He hated that he’d thought that, and hated the realisation that he was probably far from the first to dream about her that way. The idea made his blood boil. He couldn’t stop that, but he could stop anyone suspicious (ignoring the fact that he, himself, was definitely suspicious) and he resolved himself to guarding the room from unwanted guests.

Careful not to disturb the peaceful scene, he settled down gently on the floor at the foot of the bed, sitting cross-legged and alert like a guard dog. Similarly again to a guard dog, it wasn’t long before he too was curled up fast asleep on the cold floor, ears flicking at any noise, ready to protect.

When he finally woke to the sunlight filtering through the captain’s window, it was warm, an unfamiliar feeling to him. Comfortable. A blanket had been draped over his shoulders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was meant to just be the wholesome parts but I COULDN'T help myself man


	3. Anxiety

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Djeeta gets bitten by a flower and almost dies.

Djeeta’s plan to get Seox to open up had worked…. More or less. It was a start, and a start was more than she could have expected. When she sat down for breakfast, he would slide into the space beside her and quietly stay at her side, even staying put when other crew members joined them. He still spent most of his time watching from the shadows the rest of the time, but seeing him out in the open more often had helped the crew adjust to his presence, and their skin no longer crawled when they sensed him hiding. That, and she’d asked Katalina to cut him some slack. Fortunately, she didn’t have to explain why, because when Katalina had begun to frown and question her, Lyria at piped up saying that she thought Seox was just trying to do his best in his own way. She had frowned at the suggestion, but then her guarded body language had begun to ease up when she noticed him. The former lieutenant had learned to trust Lyria’s intuition.

This morning, she was sitting between Lyria and Seox as she chewed on some slightly stale toast. Lyria sat to her right, chatting brightly over cereal and orange juice, and Seox to her left, mulling silently over a mug of black tea. He’d begun to mimic their daily schedule, she noticed, but still preferred not to eat with them. As to why, she wasn’t actually sure, but she guessed that expecting him to do so might be asking for too much too soon. She was proud of this small progress, and drinking a hot beverage meant he had to remove his mask when he sat with them to avoid (she guessed) fogging it up, or burning his face trying to pour liquid through the gaps.

Djeeta finished wolfing down her toast and chugged the last of her own juice before announcing her plans to the tabled crewmates. “We gotta head back to the mist-shrouded island, I know it’s creepy but that’s why we need to go. Siero said we need a whole bunch more of those hollow little souls we bottle up from there, and some of those glowing flowers too. Rackham’s already in the loop, so I figure we’ll be leaving soon.”

She stood up, taking her empty plate and glass to the kitchen, and leaving Seox alone with the others. He shuffled uncomfortably, not willing to join their conversation, but not knowing when he could leave. He probably lasted less than two minutes before downing his tea and following suit. He regretted it, he’d left the tea leaves in and it had gone bitter, and despite it having had time to cool, drinking it all at once burned his throat. He didn’t follow her, instead retreating to his own room to prepare. The crew was more than strong enough to handle the island, but the scent of death that hung over the marsh bothered even him, and he was well acquainted with it. The nature of the primal power encompassing the island meant that even veteran crews could become overwhelmed if enemies that didn’t die swarmed in large numbers. He thought about this as he equipped himself, and considered the best exit strategy in the rare case that things turn south. Fully armoured, he opened the door to leave, to find Djeeta standing there waiting.

“You’re staying here,” she said bluntly.

He held his stony composure. “Why?”

“We’re gathering, and we don’t want to fight if we can help it. Lyria’s coming in case we _do_ get cornered and need to summon something, but we’re mostly taking healers and light magic. We don’t want to take too many people. Katalina and the others are staying with the ship, too. I’ll be veiling us, and Io will be supporting us with magic. Should be back by sundown.”

“And you’re seriously wearing that in a marsh?” he scowled from beneath his mask.

Djeeta smiled sheepishly in response. She held her staff in front of her, though it did nothing to help her hide. “It’s a bit embarrassing, I know, but the white is supposed to help bring out my purity or something. The fabric is infused with magic that enhances healing, and I guess it’s rare stuff and that’s why there isn’t _more_ of it. The ears are supposed to make me more receptive in channelling magic, which I can honestly… neither confirm nor deny.”

Seox turned a shade of red he was glad she couldn’t see. Saying that there wasn’t enough fabric was an understatement. The ears he could understand, possibly, but that didn’t justify the fluffy rabbit tail. He knew that the captain’s class outfits were modelled after those of champions from ages past, but whoever designed them must have been a pervert in any time. He didn’t like the idea of where the outfit would draw wondering eyes.

“Oi,” she snapped, seeming to read his mind. “I’ll be wearing a cloak so I don’t freeze to death, so don’t you go getting the wrong ideas.”

Seox grunted in response.

“Look, just… stay put. Take some time to yourself, okay? I doubt you really want to come flower picking anyway.” She sighed as she rubbed her temples. He followed her like a puppy, but puppies could learn to _sit_ and _stay_ and failing that, could be collared and tied down. She doubted any attempts to collar and chain Seox would end well for anyone involved. “Sundown,” she repeated.

Seox nodded, and closed the door in her face. Djeeta shrugged it off, knowing that it wouldn’t have been intentional. _He probably didn’t realise it was that close to me. Still… I hope I didn’t hurt his feelings_ , she worried as she walked away.

 

* * *

* * *

 

Seox remained in his room on the ship, not interested in training outside in an area so marshy, and even less interested in interacting with the undead villagers. He instead chose to indulge in one of his favourite activities – stewing in his own pity and self-loathing.

He couldn’t count the number of times he’d read through the journal since its discovery, obsessing over it until every word was all but memorised. It had screwed with everything he’d believed, about the world and about himself, but it raised more questions than answers. The only way he would ever be able to find them would be to find its author, whose daughter he was now conveniently travelling with.  The man was probably the one he held in the highest regard. The only reason Seox ever returned to Karm was to maintain it to the minimum standard, guarding it from looters and bandit settlers, all in case he ever returned. Which wasn’t going to happen, he now knew. He hadn’t even visited his own daughter since he before he stumbled into Seox’s life, so there was no way he would go back to meet him.

The way Djeeta spoke about the people she’d met on her journey, and how he had influenced them, made Seox doubt his own significance to the man who had acted like a second father to him. He probably wasn’t the first wayward (lethal, unstable) child that he’d come across, and probably not the last either. The man Seox was so desperate to find probably didn’t even remember him. Still, the place held his memories, both the very worst, of which there were many, but also the very best, which were few and far between. It was the land where he’d fallen, and the land where he’d been saved.

However, the man had written that Seox’s father was a dear friend. Meaning that… when he discovered Seox, he discovered a child that had murdered his friend. The child was lost, his eyes vacant, mind buried in his own trauma. He’d been going through the motions since that night, but was still coated in the blood. It had caked into his clothes and dried on his skin to later fall in flakes. But, that man had still extended his hand. He’d embraced the child Seox was. Taken aback by the unprecedented empathy and the warmth of those arms, that child broke. He’d wailed, his sobs had echoed into the night, and his tears had stained the clothes of the man who only held him closer and said that it would be okay. That was the first time Seox expressed his true emotions, his soul laid bare, his spirit almost visibly shattered, the weight of something a child should ever have to carry crushing him. The raw emotion he’d expressed had shaken his whole body, and he’d guarded himself since. He’d first donned his mask shortly after that night, determined to never let anyone see him fall apart like that again. 

Still, Seox had clung to that warmth. His own father had disowned him, and the clan had taken that as a death warrant, and his life quickly became a free-for-all. He slaughtered every one of them. His father had been the last one. He’d looked at Seox with sorrow in his eyes, but Seox was too far gone. He didn’t hear the apology whispered as he crushed his father’s throat. He was met with no resistance, and his claws sunk in. Blood gushed forward, staining the child from head to toe. He felt nothing when he turned and left. But, outside the cave, he fell to his knees under. The man had shown up a few nights later.

After Seox’s breakdown, the man forcibly dragged him away and cleaned him up. He didn’t know who this stranger was, but he’d obliged, unable to fight anymore. The man made him change, forced him to eat, and when he looked less like a character from a horror story, he’d helped Seox bury the dead. 

Burying his family brought some life back into Seox’s eyes, and he turned to anger. He lashed out at the man and his surroundings, and when he was out of things to destroy, he’d turned it onto himself. He would simply sit there, raking his sharpened claws down his arms, his legs, his torso. He felt none of it. When the man found him in that state, he’d taken the claws away, as well as the other various daggers, swords, and other weaponry, and started keeping a much closer eye on the child. 

He then withdrew into himself, but the man wasn’t satisfied with that. Apparently now safe, he started treating Seox less like a hazard to himself, and more like a son. What finally broke him out of that shell were the days they spent sparring together. Karm had homed the sky’s most elite assassins, but this man could have held up in combat against his father. Fighting him was the first challenge Seox had ever faced in combat. The man seemed to recognise the good it was doing and ramped it up, his smile only making Seox work harder. But, he was a skyfarer, and a skyfarer didn’t stay in one place for too long. 

Seox now knew that his arrival had been delayed. The journal documented the stops he had to make for airship repairs, and his following regrets that he’d been too late. Seox’s father had contacted him, detailing the clan’s uprising and their plans to assassinate his son. He’d disowned Seox at the height of the tension, planning for the man to pick him up on his exit and take him in. He was more than willing, he owed Seox’s father a number of favours on top of their friendship, and was missing the company. 

Seox felt a lump rise in his throat. He dug his claws into his leg and waited for the pain to make the lump recede. 

He’d murdered them for nothing. He now knew that it was his life or theirs, but if the timing had been different, he could have exited safely. A few assassins may have followed, but the man was more than strong enough to repel them. 

 

His life or theirs. They’d called him a monster. He’d responded by slitting their throats. 

 

His life or theirs. He’d lived with the guilt his whole life, not knowing this, always believing that that night was simply the aftermath of his disownment. Lyria and the captain seemed to believe that this journal acted as some kind of pardon, that it justified what happened. 

His life or theirs. He knew that. He’d always understood, and he knew that nothing could have changed the goons’ fates if he protected himself. He now knew that his father would have had them killed if Seox hadn’t slaughtered them, and he’d sped up the process. 

His life or theirs. This knowledge didn’t undo the damage, didn’t remove the images burned into his mind. The memory of the light fading from his father’s eyes would haunt him into the next life.

Actually, the journal made him feel worse. It had been for nothing. The threat to his life he felt from his father as a child had never been his intention. His father hadn’t needed to die. The rest of his clan, perhaps, but he’d taken that life unnecessarily… Stolen his father’s life and then stolen the time of his friend. That man didn’t even have time to grieve the loss, he was too busy saving Seox from himself. 

He pressed his claws deeper until the pain blurred his vision. He swallowed as he released his grip, the emotion in his throat that threatened to spill over finally receding. He looked out the room’s tiny window at the sky. Night had fallen.

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

_I said sunset, but…_

 

“Aha!” Djeeta finally found another lacrimosa, hidden among the reeds. The nights here were dangerous, but made the flowers much easier to spot due to their luminescence, and she plucked it with a grin of satisfaction. They would collect a few before returning, hopefully finding the last of what they needed on the way back to the ship, and would be back before it got too dark and the night zombies started appearing. She relayed this to Lyria, who in turn hopped around to the other members, telling them to finish grabbing what was left in their respective search areas before grouping up.

She stretched as she stood up, her back cracking with a satisfying pop. She smiled as she watched her party members make their way back, pouches stuffed to the brim with upgrade materials. Io and Lyria practically skipped back together, grinning at their haul. When they returned, Djeeta readied her staff and had them move in close. The party was briefly surrounded by aurora lights as she cast veil, before it disappeared as their bodies absorbed the magic. 

She nodded. “Good. Let’s go.” 

They hadn’t ventured too far from the ship, but had taken a number of detours to collect the various items. They were about halfway through their trek through the marshes on their way back when Lyria pointed out a particularly luminous flower directly behind Djeeta that she hadn’t noticed. 

“Hmmm?” She turned around to find it. “Ah, this one.” 

She bent to pluck it, and the flower _bit her._ She yelped, and the party instantly moved into a fighting stance. 

“A rafflesia?” Lyria gasped. 

“Sure as hell doesn’t look like one, it’s gotta be some kind of parasite plant.” 

The instant Djeeta stepped back, Io unleashed a volley of light magic. 

Sure enough, tendrils were already sprouting from the bite. Djeeta screeched and ripped at them. She made sure there were no roots digging through her skin before she calmed down, and cast a steady panacea. The wound healed over instantly, but something slammed into her side. She repelled it back with a sharp whack of her staff before she dove into battle. 

Io’s magic had dissipated the flower monster in one blast, but the commotion had drawn out more night monsters, and they were now facing wave after wave of low level zombies. She grimaced at the sight, and calculated the easiest route of escape while shoving zombies to the side with ease. 

“How long until you can cast that magic again?” she directed the question to Io. 

“Oh! Uh….” Io trailed off to think about it, surprised. Jeanne leapt forward from the rear to dispose of a monster that had picked up on the break in her guard. “A few more minutes?” 

Djeeta nodded. “Tell me when you’re ready. We’ll wipe them in one go and dash back, they shouldn’t follow once we’ve made distance.” 

The monsters continued to push in waves, none of them individually strong, but the sheer numbers wearing down the group’s stamina. 

“Ready!” the small mage exclaimed. 

“Right. I’ll go, then you clear the stragglers.” 

She thrust her spear into the air. The party ducked for cover. 

“ _HOLY SPIKE!_ ”

The magic annihilated everything around them, flattening the grass and blasting away both monsters and zombies. It was followed by a second staff being thrust forward. 

“ _Flowery Seven!”_

Seven balls of light burst forth, clearing out the monsters that had survived the first blast. 

Io lowered her staff with a satisfying _humph_ before she turned to face the crew. 

“That’ll give us a bit of time,” she exclaimed proudly, “but we should hurry before…” her voice trailed off. 

“Captain?” 

Djeeta was white as a sheet and drenched in sweat, but she still smiled in response before almost collapsing. She was shaking as she used her staff to support herself. Lyria rushed to support her. 

“Captain.” Jeanne echoed Io with a bark. “Clarity, now.” 

Djeeta nodded, and used the last of her energy to cast the clear on the party. Nothing seemed to happen, and her energy expended, she collapsed in a heap right there in the clearing.

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

Seox was getting restless. Once he’d realised that night had already fallen, he began pacing. Hours passed and the ship stayed silent.

 _Damnit_. 

He shoved the door open and stormed out onto the ship’s deck, but slowed to a stop when he spotted Katalina. She looked grave, and was nodding at a breathless Jeanne D’Arc. 

“A parasite?” 

Jeanne nodded. 

Katalina frowned before continuing. “Right. We’ll stay there then. I’ll send Shao before we leave. Get some rest.” 

Jeanne nodded and disappeared into the ship. 

Katalina, not oblivious to his presence, turned around and looked in Seox’s direction. He stepped forward out of the shadow and moved hastily towards her. 

“What happened?” he asked. He tried to sound indifferent but his voice betrayed him and gave away his rising panic. 

Katalina shook her head. “We don’t really know. Some kind of parasite flower got her and she collapsed.” 

Seox opened his mouth to speak, but didn’t get the chance before Katalina seemed to read his mind and frowned sternly. 

“It would have still happened if you were there. Don’t beat yourself up.” 

He scowled. He was definitely going to beat himself up. 

She looked him over once more before her expression softened into a slight smile. “She’s with Lyria and Io at an inn in the town. I’ll be there soon.” 

Seox gave a stiff nod and disappeared.

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

He was breathless by the time he burst into the room. 

“ _Shit_ ,” he hissed the curse through gritted teeth. 

Djeeta was lying in the bed, still in the sage outfit. Her skin was the palest he’d ever seen it, as though the blood was been drained from her body. The only colour was in her face, which was flushed with fever, but her eyes were shut tight as though she was in pain. The girls had been wiping away the sweat to no avail, and he was shivering, too, causing her body to almost glimmer. 

Io bristled at the arrival of a man. She was taking a deep breath, prepared to tell him off, when Lyria placed a hand on her shoulder and shook her head gently. She raised a finger from her free hand to her lips as a plea for quiet, and then pointed it to the door. Seox was confused, not sure if she was telling him to leave, until he realised how loudly he’d entered. 

“Sorry,” he muttered, and gently closed it. He took a step towards the three girls, intending to take over one of their positions, when he realised that this would mean wiping down her bare skin with a damp cloth. He instead sunk into an armchair and watched the pair. Io was determined to do her best for the captain, but was slowly drifting off. Lyria was doing her best to maintain her composure. She just murmured to Djeeta as she pulled her hair back to wipe the sweat away. She didn’t seem concerned for her safety so much as upset to see her in such a state. 

When Io had finally given up and fallen asleep with her head resting beside the captain’s thigh, Lyria was ready for a break too. Seox demanded (quietly) that for her to explain what happened, and she nodded once. 

“Well, you see…” she began, recounting the events. He scowled when she explained the monster swarm. It was exactly what he’d been worried about. Lyria read him like a book. “It wasn’t the monsters, Seox. We were veiled and clarity did nothing. You couldn’t have stopped whatever this is. Sometimes bad things just happen. The most important thing is that you’re here now, and that you take care of yourself to keep being there when she needs you.” 

She smiled gently, before crawling into the bed on the side opposite Io’s post. It wasn’t long before she was snoozing peacefully at Djeeta’s side. At some point, Katalina arrived and entered with Shao in tow. She walked in and gently shook Io awake to explain the events once more in detail to Shao, who nodded in understanding. The three of them ignored Seox and left, presumably to get some sleep in another room. 

He himself didn’t sleep. He sat awake in the room all night. He monitored her breathing, but  keeping tabs on the rise and fall of her chest when she was drenched in sweat and wearing something so revealing didn’t sit right with him, so he instead sat in silence and listened to her ragged breaths. His eyes were glued to the closed door all night. 

Shao was the first to enter the next morning, deftly manoeuvring around a sleeping Lyria to place a hand on Djeeta’s forhead. He frowned and moved down, placing a long ear against her chest. Seox bristled at the sight. A growl escaped his throat right as Katalina entered, who silenced him with a glare. 

“Rare indeed,” Shao mused.

Katalina raised an eyebrow at the healer. 

“She’ll be fine with the right medicine. Make her take this when she wakes up, keep her drinking water, and try to keep her fever down. Still, very rare, I would have liked to see a sample,” he paused to smile enigmatically, fully aware of Seox’s masked death stare. 

“That flower was a lacrimosa variety of rafflesia, one that aims for a mammalian host. Its venom both deposits rapid-growing seeds and a poison. The poison contains nutrients for the sapling as well, of course, but mostly serves as an agent to assure that the host body becomes the perfect environment when the flower takes over before it expires, assuming it wasn’t removed before it could grow as your captain’s was. Cases used to pop up every so often, but they’re quite rare now, being endemic to an island that…” he paused to find the right expression. “An island low on living bodies.” 

He procured a bag of medicine and passed it to Katalina, who looked absolutely aghast. 

“Three times a day. It’ll help her body filter out the venom, and she’ll be as energetic as ever the instant it’s over.” He smiled, bowed, and took his exit. 

Seox, Katalina, and Lyria (who at some point had stirred awake, just to hear exactly what it was that could have almost killed her other half) all just watched him leave incredulously. 

He found that days tended to blur together when you stayed awake without doing anything. Another three full days or so passed before Djeeta was better. Lyria spent most of her time in the room with them, keeping tabs on Djeeta and writing in her journal to pass time. Vyrn entered several times a day, but after being shushed by Lyria, usually left sad and dejected at not getting to see her awake. Djeeta herself would wake up every so often, take her medicine, drink some water, and go back to sleep. The first time she woke, she spotted Seox and called out to him, but he simply nodded in response. That confirmation of his presence was apparently enough, and she passed out once again. When she awoke the rest of the time, Lyria refused to let her out of bed except for bathroom breaks, and insisted on feeding her rice porridge while she lay down. She’d fall back into a restless sleep soon after. 

Like Shao said, it was all at once, her body apparently satisfied now that it had sweat out the toxins. Lyria was thrilled when Djeeta woke up and asked where the porridge was with a sneaky smile. She sat up and stretched, but grimaced when she lifted her arm. _I need a shower_ … 

Crap. Seox was still there, wasn’t he? She turned her head cautiously and froze. Even his stupid mask looked smug. 

“Shower?” He asked. 

She blushed a little and nodded. “Were you… here the whole time?” 

“Lyria looked after you. Nobody unwelcome entered.” 

Djeeta took that to mean yes. She flashed him a genuine smile of thanks. She did need that shower though. She stood up and stretched again, properly this time. 

“Hey, can you go tell Katalina I’m about ready to head back? The cost of staying here must be adding up,” she added as an afterthought and paled at the estimate. “I’m gonna sneak a shower in before I go, though.” 

Seox nodded coolly and left, but he was bright red under the mask. She seemed better, but she’d been delirious for days, and didn’t seem to realise that she was stretching and discussing showers in _that outfit._ He shook it off before heading to find Katalina, who was eating breakfast with Lyria. The blue-haired girl was overjoyed and Katalina breathed a sigh of relief. 

Djeeta was surprised to find Seox waiting outside the door to her room when she was ready to leave. She’d figured he would have left ahead of them, but it didn’t bother her. Rather, she appreciated it when he was there, so long as he didn’t try to hide. Lyria and Katalina didn’t question his presence either, and didn’t even tease him for it, so she realised with guilt that he’d probably taken her illness very seriously. He simply stayed silent at her side as the four of them walked back with Vyrn floating alongside, not even taking the bait when Lyria and the lizard bragged about how devoted the “masked wonder” must be to have stayed in the room the whole time without leaving, and how he’d rejected all food offers. 

 

“Geeeeeez,” she whined as she plopped down on the edge of the bed. “I appreciate it, I really do, but you could have _eaten_ , you’re no good to me starving.” 

She sighed when she saw Seox’s ears droop a little. The mask could only hide so much, and his lack of self-awareness seemed to mean he didn’t understand what he was still communicating with his own body language. She folded her legs up and gave a little hand wave for him to move closer. 

That was a relief, because he’d been standing in the doorway, unsure if he was supposed to leave, or enter and respond. But then she patted the space beside her. He hesitated, not wanting to outright ignore her, but unsure about sitting so close. 

Djeeta noticed his hesitation and rolled her eyes. “Please?” 

He replied with a small nod after a short period of consideration before sitting gingerly beside her. Suddenly, she wrapped her hand around the side of his head and pulled him sideways. He screeched and pulled away before his head could hit her thighs. 

“What the hell are you _doing_ you---” He stopped when he saw the rejection on her face. His chest throbbed. 

When she tried again, he didn’t resist, instead pulling his legs up to lie properly. When he relaxed into her lap, for the first time, he wanted his mask off. Fortunately, she pulled it off for him, and again met no resistance. She instead met a pair of sad eyes that were drooping as the warmth threatened to engulf him. 

Seox hadn’t slept in days, and was beginning to near his limit. 

“Did I worry you?” She murmured, brushing the hair from his eyes. 

His head jerked in a small nod. 

“I’m sorry.”

He didn’t respond, instead closing his eyes and appreciating her warmth. Warmth meant she was alive. 

Djeeta ran her fingers playfully across one of his ears, giggling at the way it seemed to flick itself in response to her touch. _He really is just a big cat_ , she thought to herself as she moved her hand to stroke his hair from his forehead again, delighting in the way he seemed to press into her touch, seemingly too sleepy to realise. _He acts tough and has sharp claws but he really is just a big, scared cat. Look at him.  
_

As much as he loathed to admit it, the gentle touch of her hands across his ears felt _amazing_. He knew he was involuntarily leaning into her hands for more of it, but he was mostly asleep by this point, and it was so relaxing, and damn if this is what it felt like to be close to another person, he might just be able to tolerate it… 

Djeeta’s finger hooked itself around the base of his ear, scritching the back just like she would a large cat. His ears twitched in response, his whole head pushing slightly in the direction of her hand, and a large _purr escaped his throat_ right as sleep took him before he even had a chance to feel embarrassed. He passed out, right there in her lap, the purring continuing but softening into what could almost be considered a soft snore. 

“Oi, oi,” she stammered to deaf ears when his head moved to the side and he curled into her. 

His arms wrapped around her as he nuzzled his face into her clothes. She sighed and let her shoulders relax once again and contented herself to continue stroking his hair. Lyria’s head poked around the doorway, and Djeeta raised her finger to her lips before waving her in. 

Lyria approached cautiously with both hands over her mouth. She looked pleased. 

_Is he asleep?_ She mouthed the question as she moved her hands into a sleeping gesture. 

Djeeta nodded sheepishly, a light blush on her face. Lyria grinned and left them be, closing the door gently when she made her leave. Djeeta resumed stroking his hair, content to watch his sleeping face for as long as she could. It was probably the most peaceful she’d ever seen him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry if this is kinda stupid? I still can't write and struggled to split this up and bridge pieces together, also I got to the end and went "oh shit i forgot vyrn existed and would totally be flipping his shit" and kinda had to stick that in there so uh , ,


	4. Girl Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rated E for Explicit. Rated Explicit for hand-holding, head pats, and cuddling. Sorry for being such a filthy heathen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 7.8/10 Too Much Dialogue

Seox woke slowly, the way one usually does from a nap. Groggy, with no idea if he’d slept for ten minutes or ten hours. As he blinked to clear his sleep-blurred eyes, a pair of red orbs appeared. He frowned in confusion and rubbed his eyes with his hands. When he moved them, the two orbs became clear, along with a jagged mouth along a square jaw. A frightening visage.

 

His mouth stretched into a stern look of disapproval. “What the hell are you doing?”

The only response was two hands rising into a mimic clawing motion.

 

“Raaaaaaaahhhh!” came the girlish voice from beneath the mask.

 

A sleepy smile teased at the corner of his lips. “Having fun?”

“Not really,” she said and pulled it from her face, “it’s stuffy in here. I dunno how you do it.”

She placed the mask on his chest and stretched her arms forward. “C’mon,” she said, jiggling her knee. “I wanna get up.”

For the first time, Seox realised where his head was. His cheek was warm where he’d been sleeping on it, meaning that at some point, his face had been pressed into her lap, towards _the top of her_ … His face flushed a deep red and he jolted upwards with a start. The mask clattered to the floor. He sat in shame, not willing to turn around to face her. A hand landed atop his head and scruffed his hair. When it stopped, the bed got lighter.

“I’ll be back later.” She took a step, then paused. “You should get some more sleep. You can stay there,” she added before leaving.

He waited for the door to click before falling back, an arm thrown over his face. Her voice had held a tone unfamiliar to him, usually something he only heard others use, and never to him. It had been soft, gentle, and could almost be mistaken for caring. He’d probably bothered her by falling asleep on her and causing her concern, he guessed. He’d probably only been asleep for an hour or two, so she was right, he _did_ need more sleep. He didn’t want to risk heading back to his own bed alone, lest someone see him leave and question why he was there, but to sleep in her bed…

He rolled over into a more comfortable position and breathed her scent from her sheets. He was back asleep before he’d even decided what to do.

 

* * *

* * *

 

It was still only mid-afternoon when Djeeta walked through the Tavern doors, Rosetta at her side. Rackham startled at her approach, but she ignored him and signaled to the bartender before plonking herself down beside him. When the large mug was shoved in front of her, he stared at her incredulously.

“Are you seriously going to start drinking already? But _you_ were half dead only this morning!” He exclaimed the second part when Djeeta directed her stare at his own mug.

“Ah, let her have some fun now,” Eugen pitched in from Rackham’s other side and raised his mug. “To the captain’s health!”

Djeeta joined them with a grin, raising her mug before bringing it to her mouth and chugging half in one go.

“That’s the spirit, missy,” he praised and winked.

Rosetta, having waited patiently, placed a hand on Djeeta’s shoulder. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, boys. The captain and I are here to have a little girl talk.”

The men looked surprised, and a little suspicious, but shrugged it off and returned to their airship chitchat.

“Girl talk?” Djeeta asked with an eyebrow cocked at her companion, having twisted in her spot to face the lady primal to her right. “Isn’t that more of an Io thing?”

Rosetta just smiled. “It’s rare to see you alone these days, after all.”

Djeeta shifted in her seat and nursed her drink a moment before speaking. “He wants to protect me”

“Oh? Why would that be?”

“Do you remember that journal we found on Karm?”

Rosetta nodded, intrigued.

“My dad wrote it.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. She hadn’t known about that. Turned out that the longer she travelled with his daughter, the more she learned about the man she’d done the same with previously.

“I checked it myself to make sure. When Seox realised what I was saying, he dropped to his knee right there. Rather embarrassing, really…” Djeeta trailed off with a small pout.

Rosetta had a glimmer in her eye. “And that’s all?”

“Eh?”

“He just wants to protect you?”

“I guess?”

“And that’s all _you_ want?”

Djeeta, now on her second beer, turned pink. “I just want him to be more comfortable around us, as a crew.”

“And you want that because…?”

“He’s a crew _member_ ,” Djeeta snapped.

Rosetta gave a sly smile. “If anyone else followed you around like that, crew member or even eternal, you’d push them off the ship mid-air.”

“I would not!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot. You’d slap them around a bit first, _then_ push them off.”

Djeeta scowled at her. Rosetta just laughed and winked.

“I’m a true lady, after all, and you know which flower the rose is. You can come to me with your love troubles.” Then, in a more serious tone, she added, “I want to see you happy. We all do. Everyone is behind you two, otherwise someone would have intervened.”

Djeeta squirmed under Rosetta’s gaze. She finished off her drink, tilting the glass vertical to try to get every last drop of liquid.

“It’s Seox,” she said, when she stopped being able to force her attention away and onto the beer.  A new mug appeared in front of her, and she sipped at the foam. “If I say anything, he’ll just get anxious, and stop talking to me all over again. I think he just wants to look after me out of loyalty to my dad.”

“If you say so, dear,” Rosetta said, turning her attention away to scan the room. “That reminds me, where is the little guard dog now, then?”

“Huh? Oh, him? Probably still asleep in my bed,” Djeeta smiled softly as she spoke, remembering the way he’d purred when she played with his ears.

Rosetta, however, felt her eyes widen in disbelief. “Djeeta! You sly fox!”

 

“Huh?”

 

Djeeta’s smile froze as she realised how that must have sounded. Followed was the realisation that she'd left him there to find an exit on his own with no explanation to any crew members that might happen by.

 

“No, no no no no no! Not like that! No!” she blubbered, waving her hands frantically in front of her. “He fell asleep in my lap and I said he could stay there!”

Rosetta’s expression returned from surprise to normal, but the news still brought a smile to her face.

“So you really are close, then~” she teased. Djeeta looked away in response, the redness in her face exacerbated by the alcohol.

“Still… Not really...” She murmured. Rosetta’s arm wrapped its way around her shoulder.

“C’mooon,” she cooed. “Tell it all to your big sis~”

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

Seox didn’t wake slowly this time, awoken by the commotion outside. Instead, the awakening was much more what he was used to – waking with a start, alert and ready to fight. He hastily searched for his mask, and unable to find it in the bed, stood up to search properly.

 

Something crunched beneath his feet.

 

 _Oh_.

 

An unceremonious end.

 

He swore and picked up the pieces, finding that one chunk still fitted his face quite nicely, covering his eye and almost half his face. It left him exposed, but it would do until he could replace the full thing. He was checking the fit in the mirror when a roar of laughter outside reminded him of where he should be.

 _Probably just some drunks_ , he thought as he rushed to the deck, _but I should make sure they aren’t going to do anything stupid to the ship._ It didn’t even cross his mind that the sun had barely gone down until he spotted them.

Rackham and Eugen supported Djeeta between them and Rosetta walked along their side, all four appearing jolly but completely wasted. Rosetta was probably faking, but Djeeta was flushed and slurring. He stood atop the ramp to the deck with his arms folded across his chest and a stern expression painted across his face.

He took a step back when they reached his level so that they could stand straight before chiding them. “It’s barely sundown,” he spat at the two men, “and you…”

His frown softened into one of concern when he looked at Djeeta. “I’m surprised you can even drink on this island. You were barely breathing just this morning, were you not?”

The girl in question ignored him, instead untangling herself from Rackham and Eugen’s shoulders to launch herself forward. Seox caught her by the arms before she could topple over. The two men just laughed and said “she’s yours, now” and disappeared, presumably to drink more.

“Ssshhhhiiiiiiiicksssss,” she slurred, batting her lashes at him. “Mishh me?”

Rosetta laughed and nudged at Seox’s ribs teasingly. “Maybe you should carry her,” she whispered. “You wouldn’t want her to fall, would you?”

Seox’s face flushed, which was unbearably visible despite the broken mask, but he nodded and bent down to scoop her up and met no resistance.

“Onwards, steed!” Djeeta exclaimed from his arms and pumped a fist forward.

Rosetta chuckled and led the way forward. Seox followed, baffled as to how he could be asleep one second, and carrying a girl who’d just called him _steed_ the next.

Looking up at him from his arms, Djeeta seemed to finally notice something and gasped.

“What?” he asked, not bothering to look down at her.

“Your maaaask!”

“What about it?”

“Can see your face!”

Seox simply gritted his teeth and faced forward.

He tried to place her down when Rosetta opened the door to the captain’s room, but she clung to his neck like a small, drunken animal. She responded to his frown with a grin.

“I’m going to draw you a bath,” Rosetta hummed, walking straight to the brick fire pit to light it. “Seox, be a dear and bring the tub, would you?”

Either she had no idea that Djeeta was being a pain, or she was screwing with him. Probably a little of both.

“I’m a bit tangled up right now,” he growled.

Rosetta simply tutted and muttered something about ladies and lifting heavy objects. He paid her no mind, too busy grappling with a girl known for bringing down armies but who had firmly latched onto him. He finally managed to detach her and stand her straight, but conceded when she caught his hand in his. Djeeta grinned at him.

“Let go, I need to leave. You know you’re about to take a bath, right?” He asked with an exasperated sigh.

“Huh? Says who?”

He lifted his free hand to point at the tub, now full of water and steaming over the fire pit. Rosetta gave a little smile and wave. Seox glared back in return.

Djeeta followed with her eyes, and mulled it over. The gears were almost visibly turning in her head. Then she shrugged, and began to strip. Innocently first, kicking her shoes off, then using her free hand to fumble with the buttons of her dress. Seox’s face reddened and faced away. His hand, much like the rest of him, was getting sweaty with discomfort.

Then she grabbed his other hand and let go of the other. Confused, he faced her again, and his jaw dropped in sheer shock. She’d managed to pull her dress off over her head, and unwilling to let go of him, had switched hands to pull her sleeve off the other arm.

“What?” She asked with a sly grin. “You’ll _protect_ my shame, won’t you?”

Seox threw an arm straight over his face to block her from sight. Apparently she didn’t realise that she was already in her underwear.

“Besides,” she added as an afterthought. “If you peek at us, I’ll sic Rosetta on you. She’s a primal, you know that?”

He gulped. Djeeta had started dragging him forward blindly, asking Rosetta something about helping her with her bra. He kept his eyes shut as tight as he could manage when she pulled the arm from his face to swap hands again. Truthfully, he probably could have pulled away at any time, but didn’t want to risk upsetting her… Or the lady primal. _Wait_. She’d said peek at _us_.

When he was pulled forward once more, his suspicions were confirmed. The water splashed twice when they entered the tub, Djeeta not once letting go of his hand. So there he stood, his feet centimetres away from a fire pit, holding the hand of a girl who was bathing while his eyes were shut tight. _This has got to be some kind of damned test_ , he thought, probably from the rose woman. He grimaced when a splash of water hit the fur on his ear.

“Can I go now?” He asked a few minutes in through clenched teeth. The tension of holding his eyes closed so tight was giving him a headache, and he didn’t know which was making him sweat more – the steam or the stress.

Djeeta whined in response. “You don’t want to hold my hand?”

 _Not like this_. He held his tongue.

“At least let me turn around?” He pleaded.

There was a pause, and then a burst of laughter.

“Djeeta, dear, he can’t see you if you nod.”

“OH. Okay. Um. Turn around and then switch hands.”

Seox obliged gladly, twisting so that the tub was to his back and his arm at an awkward angle, before holding his other hand behind him. He felt her grab it with one hand, then both, then one. They’d managed to not break contact. He let out a little huff of anticipation before cautiously opening his eyes, hoping to god that he’d turned far enough away.

His muscles relaxed in relief. He was facing the wall with a clear view of most of the room, with the door in the corner of his vision. He didn’t dare turn to face it properly, though, lest he might catch some unwanted flesh tones in sight.

“You could shit?” The voice behind him suggested.

“Wh-what?” He stammered.

“Shorry. Ssssssssssssit. Sit down,” she said, dragging out the _sss_ to make it _extra_ clear that she could speak properly.

“And sit in fire?”  
  
“You don’t want your ass to burn for me?” She pouted. “Wait, no no, that wasn’t right again, uhh…”

After a while he managed to mostly tune them out, the splashing of the bath forming a sort of white noise track as he played guard and drowned in his own thoughts. Rosetta seemed to really mother over Djeeta. He’d noticed it before with Io, but now that he thought about it, she seemed to do it a lot for the younger women and girls in the crew. He wondered if it was that they simply gravitated towards her because she was a more mature lady, or if she was simply nurturing by nature. Probably more the latter than the former, due to her being a plant-design primal. He wondered if she had a reason and made a mental note to ask someone later if primals were able to reproduce.

Djeeta held onto his sweating hand the whole time, and even when climbing out, had Rosetta assist her with drying herself so she wouldn’t need to let go. Getting dressed was the same disaster than getting _un_ dressed had been, with him trying to stand as still as he could and do what he was told without opening his eyes. He almost called it quits and walked out on more than one occasion, but stayed put, and the ordeal was eventually over when one of them spoke up.

“It’s safe now,” said Rosetta from near the door.

Seox opened his eyes once more with a small sigh of relief. The first thing he saw was Rosetta wink and leave with a little wave. He’d past her little test, he guessed. The second was Djeeta, who’d stepped in front of him while tugging at his hand, causing his chest to flutter at the unfamiliar sensation.

Rosetta was right about the bath, it _had_ sobered her. Now she was less drunk, but a lot more grumpy, probably due in part to the hassle of getting dressed. The bath had left her skin pink and her hair damp, though, and she was wearing a fluffy-looking pair of pink pyjamas.

 

She was cute.

 

Seox couldn’t wait to get away and hide.

 

But, when she tugged at his hand once more, he realised that he didn’t mind grumpy. He didn’t bother objecting, either, when she dragged him to the bed and told him to sit.

“Tch. Not like that.”

She finally let go and reached over him to grab her pillow. Seox took the chance to wipe his sweaty palm.

“Sit there,” she said, this time pointing to the head of the bed before adding with a shy smile, “and cross your legs. You owe me for earlier, after all.”

He was confused, but pulled his legs up as instructed (with no need to remove his shoes, having not had time to put them on after his nap) and slid over until his knee hit the headboard. She shook her head.

“Other way,” she said, making a twirling motion with her finger.

He shuffled his butt around so that his back was now against the headboard instead, and looked to Djeeta for approval. She nodded triumphantly and tossed the pillow into his lap.

“It’ll do.”

Next thing Seox knew, she’d thrown back the covers and crawled into bed, pulled them back over herself, rolled onto her side, and rested her head comfortably on the pillow in his lap. She grabbed one of his hands and placed it on his head, briefly puppeteering his hand into a stroking motion as he’d done for him earlier. When she stopped, so did he, so she repeated it until he got the idea. Satisfied, she let go, and grabbed his other arm to pull toward her to snuggle into. Her eyes closed in a look of bliss.

With nowhere to go, he didn’t resist, although he didn’t understand. He resigned himself to keeping as still as possible aside from the hand. He worried she could feel his heart pounding, but if she did, she didn’t seem to care. He could feel hers clearly, though, because his arm was being firmly pressed against her chest (right between _those_ ) and it was surprisingly calm. He guessed this was something she enjoyed, and despite not comprehending, was finding himself willing to do what she wanted if it made her happy.

He hoped she was happy. He doubted it was possible for him to create it, but her happiness was one more thing he would lay down his life to protect if need be. She grumbled when he pulled his hand away briefly to pull of his mask and place it beside them, but settled back down when he resumed petting her hair and brushing it from her face.

Having already slept through a decent portion of the day, he wasn’t going to be falling asleep any time soon. But, now able to see clearly despite the dim light once his section of mask was removed, he finally took the time to examine the features behind the sandy blonde hair that he was delicately stroking away. Half her face was buried in the pillow, but her profile was feminine, but not dainty and delicate so much as it was stern through soft features. Her skin was surprisingly smooth for a battle-proven skyfarer, and spattered faintly with a few light freckles across her nose and cheeks. Her eyelids were adorned with long, thick lashes, and he knew that behind them were hidden irises like two pools of brown, plain but full of life and determination and warmth.

She was also drooling, he noticed with a small smile.

The smile disappeared when he felt it. Smiling wasn’t something he deserved to do. He didn’t deserve to be there, either. He barely deserved to be a crew member to start with, first with the eternals, then with the Grandcypher crew. The best he could do was try to protect her, but he destroyed everything he touched, everything he cared about, and if he didn’t get away she would be next. The one he promised he would protect would be next and the only way to protect him from _himself_ was to get far away as possible.

Apparently noticing the shift in his attitude, Djeeta mumbled his name. He froze.

“Seox?” She repeated, her body tensing at the sudden loss of movement.

He stayed silent but gave her shoulder a small squeeze, and she relaxed again.

“Please don’t leave,” she murmured, clinging tighter to his arm.

“You’re kind of holding me here,” he responded quietly, barely above a whisper. She shook her head in response.

“Stay here, with me. Please don’t disappear.”

A single tear rolled from the corner of her eye and onto her nose, barely noticeable despite his enhanced vision. The fist clamping his heart squeezed tighter.

“…Okay.”

“Promise?”

“…I promise.”

She nodded, and was calm again. Soon enough she was asleep and snuffling softly, Seox still stroking her hair.

 

Running away wasn’t going to be an option.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually started this fic with what will be the... next chapter? I don't know how to get to the point and normally get a little rambly but I had some trouble connecting the sections of this part.


	5. Unite and Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The secret to how half-elixirs (and by extension, full elixirs, although these were also a powerful healing potion) gave the drinker incredible stamina wasn’t from them being full of caffeine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a bit of a disconnected mess tbh
> 
> writing is hard and so is six

Djeeta woke alone, with a dry mouth and a full bladder. She groaned and pulled the blanket over her head to shut out the sun. There was no chance of going back to sleep, but she could try. Waking up warm in her own bed felt a lot better than waking up delirious in the inn and she didn’t want to get up until she absolutely needed to, so she chose to instead relish the warmth for as long as she could. But…

The warmth was missing something, she realised with a twang of emptiness. She hadn’t had enough to drink to forget the night so much as blur it, and she replayed the night over in her mind until she felt her heart drop. _I did all that_ , she realised with another groan. He must have moved her as carefully as possible so as to not wake her before slipping away, still being gentle despite her incessant clinging. She really didn’t have an excuse for her behaviour, drunk or otherwise. If anything, she should be glad that she was alone, so she wouldn’t need to face him.

 _He had no reason to stay after all that_ , Djeeta lamented. _But still, I made him promise_ …

She briefly rolled around restlessly, before giving up and swinging her legs out. She got up slowly, taking the time to stretch and rub the sleep from her eyes, before making her way to the bathroom. As captain, her quarters had their own private washroom, but having a hot bath still required dragging the tub out to the fire pit as Rosetta had done the last night. Her hand reached for the door handle, and it turned with a little too much ease.

Her face froze when it clicked and the door swung back, revealing an uncharacteristically sleepy-looking erune.

“Eh?”

“Huh?”

His face was frozen an expression that perfectly mirrored Djeeta’s confusion, but quickly twisted into one of panic.

“I just had to get up to, uh, yknow, uh-“ his flustered stuttering was interrupted by Djeeta forcing her way around him just to shove him out and slam the door behind him.

Her heart was beating like an Auguste drum as she slumped against the wood dividing them. By this point her mouth felt dryer than the Mephorash desert, but no number of island similes could keep her mind off the fact that he had _actually stayed_. Not just that, but he seemed to have just woken up too, meaning he’d fallen asleep at some point, her head in his lap. Meaning, at some point, they’d both been asleep in the same bed.

She took a few shaky breaths before moving to the sink to splash her face with water and, after a moment’s hesitation, stick her face under the faucet. She guzzled mouthful after mouthful of water unabashedly, allowing it to spill over across her face with not a thought in her mind except for the desperate _need_ for hydration. When she finally pulled back to gasp for air, the stray drops ran down her chin and dripped onto the skin of her décolleté under her collar, before running further down between her breasts. She wiped her face with her sleeve with tinge of annoyance at the mess, and glanced at the door. _Good thing he didn’t see that_.

 

* * *

 

Seox chose to wait patiently while Djeeta did her business, and to him, waiting patiently meant pacing and stressing. So, he paced as he waited, fretting that she was mad at him for getting up, or if him eventually falling asleep went against what she had asked of him. He had intended to follow through and stroke her hair all night, but the situation had gotten the better off him, and he had eventually dozed off. Normally, he could stay on guard for days on end, but somehow her warmth had an almost sedative effect that should probably have concerned him. It made him weak, calm. Relaxed his tightened muscles and quieted the screams that echoed in the back of his head. Concerning, but somehow he didn’t have it in him to mistrust the captain, even less so when he’d learned of her parentage. He’d considered leaving, to return to his own bed, but for a sleeping drunk girl, Djeeta had an unbelievably strong grip. Pulling away definitely would have woken her, but it had loosened by morning. Somehow, he was inclined to believe she’d known he’d fallen asleep and become less concerned about pinning him there.

His ears flicked at the sound of the washroom door moving, and he turned on his heel to face her, ready to drop his head and apologise. Instead, his eyes met a surprising role reversal, _her_ head drooping in shame as she took a step towards him.

He did his best to ignore the wet stains on her clothes, and their conspicuous location.

“Look,” Djeeta began, facing down towards her twiddling thumbs. “I’m sorry for… All of that. Last night. You shouldn’t need to deal with that behaviour, especially from a captain.”

Seox tilted his head to the side. “Behaviour?”

She resisted the urge to hit him out of frustration. “All of it. The hand thing, and forcing you to stay blind, with the threat of a primal rose bitch behind it.”

“Oh."

“…”

“You were intoxicated.”

“And?” Djeeta stared at him. “A few beers don’t justify anything.”

( _It only helps you act on ideas you already had,_ she added silently.)

Seox just shrugged. “Maybe don’t call me steed next time.”

 _Next time_. He regretted the words as soon as they tumbled from his lips. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to pick up on what was implied.

“I, uh..” he paused and scratched his head, it suddenly becoming very clear that he hadn’t bothered to mask his face yet. “I owed you, like you said. Nobody came in, not even Lyria or the lizard. Rosetta probably warned them.”

 _The meddling Primal Rose Bitch_ , as Djeeta had called her.

Djeeta herself, however, frowned in response.

“You kept watch the whole time?”

He shook his head. “I failed, and fell asleep… A childish error.”

Her frown only deepened. “You stayed… to protect me?”

Something about the way she posed the question made Seox uneasy.

“Was that not what you wanted?”

He _really_ wanted his mask when her face twisted into an expression he didn’t understand. He needed it even more when she snapped.

“Is that it? You hang around because you think I can’t protect myself?” She demanded, pissed.

“You think you _need_ to watch over me? You think I won’t kick your ass? Or is it obligation? You think you _owe_ my father something, and that’s what it’s about?”

Seox’s eyes widened in shock and he shook his head rapidly. _No._

“So you think it’s your _atonement_ to have to babysit me, then. Great.”

He shook his head again, faster this time. He met her eyes with his, hoping they showed the pleading that he didn’t know how to express.

Her voice had been getting louder, but now it dropped in shame when she realised what she’d just said.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I just want you to open up around me.”

Those words were the ones to actually pierce him. His ears flattened and his shoulders dropped, giving him the appearance of a scolded puppy.

“I have… been…”

He had been. Since deciding to stick around, he had been rapidly pushing his own boundaries. The mask that normally never left his face was now in pieces. The sincerity of the crew, Djeeta and Lyria in particular, had shaken him and he felt comfortable in a way he’d never known possible, not since _that time_. He hadn’t even known their relation yet, that man had simply been the link, and that link had made him try harder. He had been trying, every day, and the speed at which things were changing was dizzying. Before, if someone had tried to rest their head in his lap, he would have severed it.

“…trying…”

Djeeta sighed. “I know, I’m sorry. I just don’t… want you to see me like that. After all, I… Uh, I…”

She trailed off, her eyes briefly vacant as she stared into space before shaking her head slowly. She took a deep, shaky breath almost as if to balance or prepare herself.

“Just… tell me how you feel, alright?” She looked directly at him, almost _through_ him.

 

“I… _feel_ …?”

 

_Afraid._

_Alone._

_I don’t want to see you hurt._

_I don’t want to leave your side._

_I don’t want to push you away._

He turned his face away as he tried to form the words. He didn’t want her to know the truth, if she knew that he got so anxious around her in particular, his ability to protect her would be altered, and she would lose trust in him. When he opened his mouth to speak and faced her once more, her expression hadn’t changed, but tears had begun to pool in her brown eyes and spill down her cheeks.

She grabbed both of his hands between hers and pushed them to his chest.

“When you look at me, what do you feel?”

The tears were spilling over now and he struggled to get the words out.

“I, you- I uh. _Fuck_.” He cursed quietly and tried to look away while he stumbled over his own slow words. “I don’t... You shouldn’t need to know. I feel weak. Telling you means you know I’m weak, too. I look at you and my chest hurts, like when I’m talking to people and my heart, it beats too fast, but like someone’s squeezing it in their fist. I want to protect you, but I don’t know if I can properly when I feel like this. The weak don’t protect anyone. It’s pathetic and I should be able to watch over you without this shit and nothing I do will ever make up for it.”

She just stared as he grabbed at the leather over his chest with both hands. Fair. That was more than he usually said in a week. In a month, even.

Having just said all that, Seox was not prepared for her to laugh. Laughter was part of what kept him quiet to begin with, unable to bear the mocking response when he couldn’t communicate properly. He knew she was different, seemed to understand him better than the others, maybe even genuinely _wanted_ to hear him speak for more than just the rarity of it, but…

Djeeta wrenched his hands back apart and her face took their place against his chest. Her arms wrapped firmly around him and she finally let out a shaky sob.

“You’re an idiot.” The words came muffled from the leather of his light armour.

His stunned hands jittered awkwardly midair, as though his body and mind were both stuttering together as they tried to process how to manage the situation. There was a girl, _that_ girl, and her face was against his chest. The leather was probably cold. He should probably comfort her. He wasn’t familiar with hugging, though, or general expressions of affection, or even (as he had just proven) basic communication. He usually either avoided these situations completely or, failing that, looked for others on how to manage them, but he was alone and he didn’t know where to put his hands. He could drop them beside him, or would that seem indifferent? What if he pet her head, like before? That seemed right, she seemed to respond positively to that.

Before his awkward hands could reach her hair, the decision was taken away from him as soft lips met his. His ears jolted up with surprise and a deep heat spread across his face. Her mouth was warm, he could feel the moisture from the tears staining her face, it felt good but oh god his hands were still frozen in the air and he hadn’t moved his mouth and what the hell what he supposed to-

She pulled away before he good lean back into her, covering her face in shame.

“Oh god, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-“

She was cut off as Seox grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her back towards him before wrapping his arms around her and pinning her right back into his chest. He hadn’t even thought before acting, had no time to overthink the situation, but rather had acted on instinct upon feeling the loss of contact. Silent as ever, he closed his eyes and rested his face on the top of her head. _She smells good_ , he noted as he took a deep breath to centre himself. Her scent reminded him of the sun, and he could feel her heart pounding almost as fast as his own. When he loosened his grip on her waist, her watery eyes looked up to meet his and he wiped a stray tear from her face with a calloused thumb.

“This doesn’t suit you,” he murmured, _oh god did he say that aloud_ , as he leaned in down to place a kiss upon Djeeta’s lips.

They parted easily under his before their teeth clacked awkwardly. He felt the flush in his face deepening as he pulled away, but was stopped by two gentle hands grasping at the back of his head to pull him back.

The kiss was deeper (and more successful) this time. He thought his heart was going to burst from his chest and through his shirt when he felt her tongue push into his mouth, and he responded in turn, exploring the curves of her mouth with a curious tongue. She tasted sweet but pushed into him with a force befitting her rank as captain. He pulled her closer, hands firmly on her shoulder blades, and when her tangled fingers tugged harder on his hair, heat welled inside him while he stifled the urge to moan.

It wasn’t just his heart that was threatening to burst forward, and the worry that she was going to notice it was beginning to nag at him when she broke the kiss. They pulled apart, both gasping for breath. Seox had lifted a hand to his mouth to wipe the spit from his face when his eyes focussed on the sight before him, widening to drink it in. Djeeta could only be described as dishevelled and he had never realised how attracted to her (rather than simply telling himself that yes, she was attractive) she actually was until that moment. Her face was pink, and the flush had worked its way down to her chest, which was heaving for air. Her lips were moist with their combined saliva and her eyes met his in a way that bore through his soul and made him want to scream for more, to drink all of her, to kiss her and kiss her until his lungs gave out.

He made a movement back towards her when the door slammed open, making the two both jump from their skin and instantly create distance between each other. Katalina cocked an eyebrow suspiciously at the two of them before speaking.

 

“Siero got in contact. It’s almost that time again.”

 

Seox gulped audibly. Djeeta grinned. A ferocious glint had appeared in her eyes.

 

* * *

* * *

  

 

 

Guild wars.

 

 _Fucking_ guild wars.

 

They’d spent the next week preparing, and the following week fighting. Seox was assigned to a party separate from the main force, giving the two little time together. He wondered if it was intentional.

Tensions always ran highest through the crew during this period, where they relentlessly fought monster after monster in an effort to cull the island’s population. Djeeta in particular insisted on going above and beyond her obligation as a skyfarer, throwing aside her usual compassion for her crew members as she chugged elixirs and led them into fight, after fight, after fight, all in the name of competition with other crews.

Thankfully, the last period was finally ending. The crew had just finished fighting what could only be described as a nightmare of a primal beast, luring it out and beating it down, time and time again, until their stamina finally gave out and they called it quits. They had a sizeable lead in the “friendly” competition match and motivations were running low when Djeeta eventually withdrew them.

She returned to the airship covered in primal blood. She watched from the deck with satisfaction as various crew members marched an assortment of items back to the ship, ranging from weapons and lesser summon stones to crafting and healing items. She gave a nod as the last few items returned before withdrawing to the captain’s quarters for much needed rest. Seox, too, was worn out, having been commanded to take a number of the more aggressive fighters to repeatedly fight bosses that were less of a nightmare than the strongest beasts, but still considered more than extreme in strength. Over and over again, always sending back loot, just to be told to retrieve _more_. He watched with mild amusement as Djeeta marched past him. She was dragging an axe twice her size, but he didn’t go unnoticed, however, and he found himself being dragged along just like the axe.

Once past the door to her quarters, (apparently a recurring location for their interactions as one of the only places on the ship with a semblance of privacy,) her shoulders slumped, and she finally let her exhaustion show. She looked at him with tired eyes from beneath her berserker’s hood before dropping the axe to the floor and collapsing onto the bed. He sat on the floor beside her, leaning back and resting his eyes.

“You think that outfit makes you look scary, don’t you?” he asked teasingly, but froze up when in response Djeeta rolled over to rip the mask fragment from his face.

“You’re one to talk, look at you” she said, making a jab at his visible stress from having his face uncovered. He should have been used to it by this point.

She propped herself up on one elbow to tease at his soft blue-grey hair with her other hand. “I got us that stupid axe forty times over, you know.”

Seox stayed silent, pretending not to enjoy the feeling of her scratching the back of one of his ears. He had a suspicion as to just what that axe was, and he wasn’t a fan of who’s attention having it could draw. The eternals were drawn to those things like magnets, and he had been no exception.

She sighed and, after struggling out of her ridiculously large wolf pelt, contented herself to playing with her newfound guardian’s (and/or crush’s) ears, enjoying the way they twitched in response to her hands. They really were soft.

“All that fighting really worked me up, though.”

Seox’s ears flicked in surprise, and he turned to look at her to try to understand what she meant, and was met with lips crashing into his.

“I really liked it when you kissed me the other day.”

He nodded, hating the space she’d made to talk. She was a level above him, though, and attempting to lean back in for more only made her laugh and move away. ~~  
~~

_She’s still got elixir in her_ , he realised with concern. That was the only way to explain the way she looked at him as she curled her finger in invitation for him to move closer.

Seox grunted as though she was asking him something demeaning before he obliged, moving from his place on the floor to take his seat beside her. Their heights were closer like this, and his heart thumped at how close she was. She already wore minimal clothing under her battle garb, and with the wolf pelt gone her breasts now seemed closer and dangerously bare.

Djeeta, too, was now smiling much more shyly than when she’d been teasing him. She placed a hand over his and a girlish blush streaked across her face.

“I mean, I think I deserve it after all that fighting, for you to… to, yknow…” she looked away in a display of shyness unbefitting of her character.

Seox’s heart beat harder as he willed himself to move, scared stiff. _Just kiss her. Kiss the girl._ He lent in shakily towards her, intending to plant a gentle smooch on her cheek, like a coward.

 

He missed.

 

A gasp escaped Djeeta’s throat as his lips brushed over her ear. His face reddened and warmth pooled instantly in his abdomen. Djeeta felt all her hair stand on end at the feeling of warm breath as he growled in response and began to play with her ear gently, first with another soft kiss, then a swipe of his tongue across the edge. She gasped again, louder, before ripping away only to dive back in to kiss him properly. She put her weight into it, kept her hands on his shoulders, pushing him into the mattress as a result while her lips locked with his and she forced her tongue desperately into his mouth.

She felt warm pressed against him, her tongue numbing his mind as it traced his teeth and her arms surrounding him, locking him into place. He responded in turn, running a hand up the small of her bare back to pull her closer, grabbing at her skin as he felt his carnal instincts begin to take over. He broke their kiss just to immediately move his face to her neck, letting his hand wander down and a small moan escaping Djeeta’s lips. He met no resistance as he cupped a handful of her ass and busied himself sliding his hand into the back of her underwear to feel the soft skin beneath, all the while still suckling at the skin of her neck. His pants were feeling uncomfortably tight when he began to slide his free hand up towards her chest, but she pulled away before he could reach his goal.

“No fair,” she gasped, letting her chest sit teasingly close to his face.

Seox whimpered pathetically at the loss of contact before making a look of confusion, eliciting an eyeroll from Djeeta who proceeded to sit back up. He followed suit and was met by clumsy hands trying to remove his chest armour. His eyes widened and he pulled back to stand up, and desperately struggled out of the leather before turning back. Djeeta had corrected her position, having removed her remaining armour with much more ease, and was now lying back against the pillows in barely more than her underwear.

The secret to how half-elixirs (and by extension, full elixirs, although these were also a powerful healing potion) gave the drinker incredible stamina wasn’t from them being full of caffeine. They gave the drinker an insatiable thirst for combat, making them a _must_ for any crews competing during the event they just completed. Drinking them made your blood rush warmer and invigorated your muscles. This said, outside of combat, excess elixir consumption was known to turn the drinker’s focus from bloodlust to, well, lust. Djeeta had a thirst for more than combat, and right now she only wanted to be anywhere near one person.

The erune before her had succeeded in freeing his muscles from the restricting armour, and he watched her drink in the sight of both ripples and scars alike. To Seox, she may as well be peeling his skin off, the exposure too much. Needing to get the eyes off his heavily marred chest, he dove on top of her and pushed his mouth desperately back into hers. She responded in kind, pushing herself into him and feeling something hard push back in response as one hand grasped at his hair and the other felt the curves of his back muscles.

Seox, however, was beginning to fall back into his usual stress. He pulled away to rest his head against her chest, taking comfort in the steady heartbeat. He had no right to be doing this.

“Oi,” she murmured quietly, stroking the back of his head. “I know what you’re thinking. It’s okay, really. I want this.”

He stayed silent, his mind racing. If he did nothing, she would probably end up picking fights with worn out crew members. If she didn’t fight, she’d stay lustful, and if it wasn’t with him…. His insides twisted at the idea.

“Please.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

He pushed the thoughts from his mind as best he could and gently kissed the chest his face was resting on, before pulling back to take in the sight before him. Her breasts weren’t massive, like certain other crew members, but they were still sizeable and had an irresistible firmness in their appearance. He gently pulled her bra downwards, freeing them and taking in the sight of soft pink nipples that stiffened under his gaze while Djeeta hid her face in embarrassment. Forcing himself to go slow, he returned to kissing her chest, before kissing his way down her left breast and taking a nipple into his mouth. She moaned, which pushed the last doubts from his mind, and he fondled her free breast while rolling his tongue around the nipple he was currently servicing. When it seemed like she was adjusting to the sensation, he pulled back, and switched sides, making her gasp all over again.

He’d never done this before. He hoped he was getting it right.

Djeeta shuddered when his tongue moved its way down her belly, coming to rest on her abdomen right above the line of cloth… before he pulled the hem down with his teeth, exposing the fluffy blonde pubic hair beneath. She gasped in shock as he buried his face in without hesitation, drawing his cat-like tongue straight up her slit and making her shake in pleasure.

He paused briefly to drag her knickers down properly, before burying his face once more to drink in the scent. He’d never tasted it previously, and he couldn’t get enough now. It was sweet, slightly acidic, and it was _her_. He had only intended to have a quick taste, at first. He lapped at her wetness hungrily, moving his tongue to her clit and flicking it up and down gently, enjoying the way she jerked and moaned in response. When he found the rhythm that made her whine more and twitch less, he pressed his tongue harder. He felt her spot begin to swell and she clamped his thighs around his head. Seox elicited a grunt and wrenched them back apart, pinning them against the bed. Djeeta grabbed at his ears like handles in response while she rocked her hips into his face and let out one deep moan after the other, until-

 

“Please, please- I’m gonna, I’m- You-“

 

He held her in place despite her attempts to pull away until her body seized and shook before slumping back. He gave her slit one last quick lick before pulling away.

He was painfully hard. He palmed himself through his pants absent-mindedly as her watched her chest heave, her skin covered in a sheen of sweat and an arm draped over her face. She lifted it to smile at him, before beckoning him closer. He obliged, pulling closer, but she grabbed his arm and ran her tongue up one of his fingers before pulling the length of it into her mouth. Electricity surged through his body and straight down.

“It’s okay,” she panted as she wrapped her legs around him. “Please.”

But their eyes met as he pushed himself into position on top of her, his throbbing erection still tight against his pants between them. She moved her hand down to free it and his blood turned to ice.

Seox ripped away in an instant. He regretted the action that made her look so confused, so rejected.

 

( _Did I hurt him? Or did he not want me to touch him? Wait, god, or did he not like the taste? Should I not have let him done that? Fuck, don’t erunes have strong noses? Oh god._ Worries started piling on as she watched the pained expression on his face.)

 

He shut his eyes to block it out. He shook his head at her, eyes still closed. It wasn’t right.

 

He didn’t know how to explain the truth that embarrassed himself even to think of, which was that he didn’t want her to want him just because of some potion she’d chugged too much of, or because she was too intoxicated to know better. He wanted to do things properly, which he hadn’t realised until it was too late. He wanted her to understand him first, to show her his raw heart. Fuck, it was shameful and cliché, but he wanted to make it _special_. Not for himself, even though it’d be his first time with an actual woman rather than his hand, but for her. He guessed she was probably just as inexperienced as himself and this wasn’t what he wanted for her. He at least wanted to find the words for himself to explain just why she made his chest pound so much.

 

He didn’t want her to look at him with such a hurt expression.

 

Seox left her like that. He felt his heart tear as he pulled away.

“Not like this,” he said, meeting her lost eyes with his own, before leaving.

 

He left his mask behind and, probably more importantly, his armour as well. A few crew members stared in shock as he made his way back to his own room, bare-faced and bare-chested, but he just ignored them, faced down, and moved faster. When he finally got there and shut the door, he collapsed onto his bed, and tears flowed freely and unrestrained down his face for the first time since he was young. He cried, not out of sadness so much as the raw, undefinable emotion that surged through him. Almost as though, for the first time ever, he’d known what it was like to truly feel, and he didn’t know how to control it. He covered his eyes with an arm, just to let out a mangled sob, and shifted it to bite down on. He bit his wrist harder as his other hand wondered down to finally undo his pants and pump away at his own shaft.

Her taste was still on his tongue. Her face as she gasped was still behind his closed eyes. He could still feel the imprint of her thighs where they had gripped his head. The sound of her begging, _please, please_ , still echoed in his ears.

 

He could see her panic when he moved to leave.

 

There was no satisfaction when he came, only the short feeling of release, before the emotion flooded where there should be pleasure. He spilled into his hand, but the sensation just made him cry more, his gasp at his climax just turning into a choked sob.

He stayed like that until the air cooled it and caused him to shiver until he wiped himself off on the _still_ unwashed sheets. He flipped them before wrapping himself up for warmth, cocooning himself comfortably in dirty blankets. She didn’t follow him, so he’d need to find his way back to get his mask unseen, which should be easy enough… So long as she wasn’t around, Djeeta having become particularly tuned in to his presence and therefore being difficult to sneak around. He wasn’t ready to face her again yet. That would come after he’d figured out what to do.

He needed to show her his affection properly.

They’d kissed, he’d pleasured her and then hurt her, all without expressing the feelings he hadn’t realised he had. That should be first, followed by proving that he wanted her to be happy… And proving how he felt to her. Logically, therefore, he would need to figure out _what_ those feelings were. He’d made his best attempt and she’d called him an idiot, and then two weeks later _this_ had happened.

It couldn’t be _that_ , the thing that was supposed to accompany that kind of intimacy, because _that_ wouldn’t be possible. That just couldn’t be possible for him, and if it somehow were, reciprocation was nothing more than a pipe dream. So, knowing that love was definitely impossible for them to share, he reflected on what he’d told her.

Djeeta made him feel weak, like it would be impossible for him to ever be strong enough to guarantee she’d be as safe as he wanted her to be, and his strength already had him deemed a monster. His chest hurt when he was around her, but his guard was still lowered regardless. The two times he’d napped with her, he’d felt more calm than he ever had in memory. He’d never felt that, not alone, not with the eternals, not even as a child in Karm. Normally, too, his poor management of communication made him disinterested in conversation, but she’d managed to flip it so that he _wanted_ to be able to talk better, only for her ears, but he was scared of saying the wrong thing and scaring her away. He didn’t want to ever be away from her again, a small distance was tolerable, but the idea of even being on different islands filled him with dread. At some point, too, he’d gone from wanting protect her out of loyalty, to genuinely not see her be hurt. The expression he’d seen when he left her wanting just earlier had proven that.

No, he wanted to see her smile instead. He knew that her tears would feel like his own, and after all, smiling fit her. He’d realised, to his own surprise, that he no longer just thought of her as objectively attractive. He’d tried to keep himself awake while she dozed on the pillow in his lap by counting her freckles, one by one. It had ended up only making him sleepier, but it was when he’d felt regret at not being able to see the other side of her face, the one buried in the pillow, that he’d realised it was actually her _face_ that he wanted to see, not just the freckles. No, _he_ thought she was beautiful, in a way that made the butterflies in his stomach flutter wildly. Normally they appeared like that around people when he wanted to hide, but he’d much rather watch her forever instead of hide.

 

He wanted to _protect_ her smile.

 

Seox thought back to the journal. _That man_ had said not to let go of friends he could truly trust. He’d had a strange ability to predict these things, but had he known that the friend would be his daughter and her companions? And had he known _just_ how close he would want really to keep her?

 

He hoped he _hadn’t_ known how badly Seox would want to fuck his daughter, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> basically i started with a chunk of the first chapter, and this, and then had to connect them, and i don't know how to keep things "to the point" asdfg
> 
> but yeah
> 
> fun little fact, i hate the word "p*nties". so djeeta doesn't wear them, only knickers. knick-knack branded for added posterity. knickknackknickers.


	6. Pancakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lyria basically sorts Seox's emotional shit out for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> itadakimasu  
> 

When Djeeta lurked into the dining area, a scowl was painted on her face.

When Djeeta slid into place at the end of a bench seat in the furthest corner in the room, curling around a cup of coffee, the only ones not to give her space (out of respect, intuition, or fear though, she would not know) were the blue-haired girl and the small dragon. Both were invaluable friends, but she didn’t want to deal with the good natures of either. 

She reckoned that they knew this, but ignored her wish to be alone anyway. She had no idea what they were talking about, except that it was loud and going to draw attention in her their direction. Fortunately, most of the crew was recuperating from guild wars, so the hall was fairly empty. More fortunately, Seox was nowhere to be seen, although she knew that if he _truly_ wanted to hide himself, not even she could pick up on his presence. 

She’d spent the rest of the evening trying and failing to get herself off, then when the elixir finally exited her system, crying in shame and embarrassment. Lyria had come in to check up on her, sensing her distress, but Djeeta had hidden beneath the covers and sent her away. She felt guilty for dismissing her innocent concern, but guilt was better than letting the girl see her in such a state of frustration. Right when she thought she could cry herself to sleep, it turned to irritation. She slept restlessly at best, frequently waking herself up thrashing about just to need to get back to sleep all over again, until the sun finally rose and she could get coffee. 

The coffee tasted like shit – a perfect match to the foul mood that Vyrn and Lyria were doing their best to ruin her satisfaction of. Suddenly, it got far too quiet, and she realised that they were probably waiting on some kind of response. 

“Djeeta?” Lyria repeated, visibly concerned. 

She made a low humming noise in response, only just lighter than a grunt. 

“What’s wrong? You seemed so… frustrated last night, I was getting really worried…” 

She grunted in response properly this time, but then remembered the guilt she’d already felt for dismissing her concern, and then more for _being_ the cause of it. She’d probably even projected some of the frustration onto her in the process, she realised, shifting uncomfortably. 

“It’s… private.” 

“Oi, are we not close enough anymore?” Vyrn’s wings drooped. 

“Girl stuff,” Djeeta said firmly after a pause to swallow her pride. She really didn’t want to admit it was about to her sex life to Lyria, but Vyrn was just out of the question. 

Predictably, the small dragon shot back into the air, wide-eyed. 

“That ain’t breakfast conversation!” He exclaimed, clearly uncomfortable. “I’m out!” 

She grimaced as she watched him leave. The sheer volume with which he talked, and his inability to keep his mouth shut, meant that the whole crew would soon think she was having a bad period. The men would avoid her, which might be for the better at that point, but girls would soon be showing up with advice, chocolate and maxipads for their ailing captain, and she would have to act grateful (which she really would be) but explain that it’s was all a misunderstanding, and then probably be pressured into discussing the real issue. There had been rumours going around since he’d started following her, and more since he’d started spending time alone with her… and for a crew of apparently famous warriors, gossip spread through the ranks with alarming speed. Pretty much everyone in the sky probably heard something about them, by now. 

Lyria was watching Djeeta expectantly. 

“Is that why you didn’t want me around last night?” She asked gently. “You were really frustrated, I could feel it.” 

Djeeta shook her head. “No, no, it’s not like that. I didn’t want Vyrn to pry, and you know… it really is private.” 

She felt blue eyes piercing straight through her and she squirmed, worrying just _how_ much Lyria had experienced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that I was making you feel all that.” 

Lyria shook her head. “It’s not like I feel everything that you do, I just know when something’s wrong. Do you want to tell me?” 

“I really don’t.” Djeeta paused. “You probably figured enough out already.” 

“So it’s about your boooooooooooyfriend?” Lyria teased. 

“He’s not my-!” Djeeta cut herself off, her face turning red. Lyria gave a cheeky grin in response. 

“Yeah, then, him,” she continued with a sigh, resigned. “I just…” 

She trailed off. _How do you explain to someone so genuinely caring but bright-eyed and innocent that you were about to get laid right after a victory, and that he left right before the best part? And that I don’t know if it’s something I did, or if it’s just me?_

“…Don’t know what he’s thinking.” 

Lyria smacked both hands down onto the table and jumped to her feet, startling Djeeta. 

“I’ll ask him then!”

 

“…Huh?”

 

She sat, stunned, briefly before processing what Lyria had said. 

“Wait, Lyria, don’t-!” She sighed and buried her face in her hands. The girl had already skipped off. Hopefully she wouldn’t find him. Even so, she groaned. _Shit_. 

 

* * *

* * *

 

Seox didn’t know how to face her, but he also didn’t like not being assured of her safety. As such, he very quickly fell back into the same habits – hiding in the shadows, watching Djeeta, while she grinded her teeth in annoyance. His full mask, too. He’d collected the pieces and had them welded back together, but put in a special request for the shard he’d been wearing in the meantime to remain detachable. He’d gotten unfortunately used to breathing fresher air. 

Lyria hadn’t picked up on his location, but it was probably best to leave before her searches led her back to where she started. However, she’d been a step ahead out of sheer simple-mindedness, and he found her waiting on his bed instead of looking for him around the ship. 

“Get off of there!” He exclaimed with a slight screech before shooing her off the bed. When she cocked her head to the side, confused, he turned red beneath his repaired mask. 

“Just. Off.” He didn’t know how to tell such an innocent girl (or anyone, actually) that he never bothered changing his sheets because nobody but him ever entered, especially after what he’d been using them for. 

Lyria pouted. “I wanted to speak to you alone, though.” 

“And that meant sitting on my bed?” 

She shook her head. “I was just waiting for you. We can go outside somewhere, if you want.” 

He frowned at her suspiciously. 

“Please?” She pleaded with puppy-dog eyes. 

He inspected her a while longer, hesitant, before slowly nodding. It was best to get whatever this was over with. 

“Great!” 

Before he could rip away in surprise, a small hand grabbed the sleeve of his casual hoodie and started pulling. He sighed and let her pull him along, knowing full well that _she_ knew full well that her arm strength was nothing to him, and he was only making this allowance for her. He hoped it wouldn’t haunt him later, even more so as he became aware of crew members’ stares as Lyria paraded him past. He did his best to block them out, withdrawing into himself. As a result, Seox had no idea they were off the ship until they stopped and he found himself standing outside a café near the island’s port, Lyria starry-eyed beside him. A growl came from her belly, loud enough to make passers-by stare. She looked down, ashamed, and a woman walking past made a tutting noise and shook her head at him. True, he had a hood on, and his full mask, so it probably looked like he was holding her captive or worse. 

“Fine,” he growled. “I’ll pay.”  
  
“Really!?” Lyria piped up, her eyes alight once more. Seox would have expected she’d planned this ahead of time, except that he himself had watched her get absorbed in pressing Djeeta for information and running off, breakfast forgotten. 

“Just get inside,” he snapped gruffly, wanting the safety of a wall between him and the public. 

They seated themselves in a corner by the far wall, away from the windows. 

Lyria ordered some kind of pancake breakfast. He ordered nothing. 

“Aren’t you eating, Seox? It wouldn’t feel right if it were just me when you’re paying…”

“No.” He couldn’t eat through a mask. 

She pouted in response. He waited, counting down, three, two, one… Sure enough, she moved on quickly, and began pestering him once more. 

“You know why I wanted to speak to you, don’t you, Seox?”

 _I was there_. “No.” 

“About Djeeta.”  
  
He grunted in acknowledgement. 

“Well, about both of you, really…” She twirled a strand of hair around her finger. “If you remember, not everyone in the crew does, our lives are linked.” 

Seox nodded. 

“That’s how I know something’s wrong. We live independently, but if her life is in danger, so is mine. I guess I can just sense when she’s feeling upset, or stressed, too. Maybe it’s our link, maybe it’s just our bond.” 

“So you worry about her for your own safety?” 

Lyria shook her head. “I don’t worry about her for myself. I worry about Djeeta because I love her.” 

Her expression was serious, her declaration sincere and honest as a child’s. It faltered, though, as she reflected on her words and he cheeks turned pink. She waved her hands frantically. 

“N-not, like, romantically or anything! I-I just mean, we’re closer than anyone, and I don’t ever want to leave her side, and it’s really really important to me that she’s happy.” 

She couldn’t see him smile when he nodded, but he guessed that she could sense it, because she smiled back up at him in return, calm once more. 

“Her happiness… It’s important to me, too.” 

“Do you want to see her smile lots and lots?” 

He nodded, after a moment’s hesistation. 

Lyria began to say something else, but the waitress appeared and placed a plate between them. Her eyes lit up, but Seox just stared. The stack of pancakes had to be half her size, dripping with syrup and topped with cream (both whipped and iced) and an assortment of berries. 

She grinned devilishly and clapped her hands in front of her face, her eyes closed.

 

“I humbly accept this divine offering before me of delicious food, from both the café staff and the one who paid. May it help me grow, and may the primals within me enjoy it as much as I will.”

 

She opened her eyes. 

“Time to eat!” 

Seox watched in awe as the small girl practically inhaled the food in what seemed like a matter of seconds. He didn’t even see the cutlery move before she let out a satisfied sigh, leaning back and resting her hands on her belly, the plate licked clean. 

“Mmmmm, that was delicious. Thank you, Seox!” 

He just stared. _Delicious? Did she even taste it?_ That couldn’t have been human. Was she even human? Nobody seemed to know. Lyria let out a delicate yawn and cracked her knuckles, before resuming where she left off. 

“Right. You and Djeeta. I want her to smile because I love her. You want her to smile, because…?” She leaned across the table towards Seox, who turned away. 

“Do you love her, Seox?” She asked, dead serious. 

He remained silent, still facing to the side. 

“Seox?” She repeated, still staring directly at him. “Do you?” 

He swallowed, and then cleared his throat, afraid his voice might break otherwise. “I’m not going to justify that with an answer,” he forced himself to respond, as neutrally as he could. 

Lyria just grinned. “Let me ask this, then. Why do you follow her everywhere?”  
  
“To protect her. I promised I would, as a… friend of her father. For both him and myself.” 

She raised an eyebrow. “You don’t think Djeeta is strong enough to protect herself?”  
  
Seox grunted. “Of course I do, but she’s reckless. Someone needs to watch her back.” 

“We have a whole crew of people doing that.”  
  
He didn’t have a response to that. He was easily one of the strongest, but he couldn’t hold a match to their numbers in full force. 

“How about this, then? What do you feel around her?”

Again, he chose not to respond, but had subconsciously moved his hand to clench at the fabric over his chest. Lyria’s expression softened into a gentle smile and made him realise what he was doing. He tore his hand back away and straightened up. She giggled at him. 

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” she said and, at his silence, continued. “Do you want to do things like hold her hand?” 

_We already did that_. He said nothing. He wasn’t going to lie, it hadn’t actually been a bad experience, though, despite the circumstances. 

She leaned in further. “Do you want to _kiss_ her, Seox?” She teased him, twirling a finger in the air. 

_We already did that, too_. His face turned a deep red and he cleared his throat once more, pulling his seat back to create more distance between them. 

“You doooo, don’t you? You want to smooch the captain~!” 

“I… We, uh… Already…” He tried to look anywhere but at the girl teasing him. He was glad for the mask, he would look ridiculous to anyone else, getting flustered by the teasing of a girl a fraction of his size. 

Lyria’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped. She shot back up straight, her cheeks pink and her hands covering her open mouth as she let out a signature “uwawawawa!” gasp. Seox shifted, extremely embarrassed. 

“Seox! You already-! Why didn’t anybody tell me? Does anyone else know? That settles it!” Her voice was getting uncomfortably loud as she babbled, and she slammed her palms onto the table, making her empty plate and cutlery rattle. “You _do_ love her! You don’t do that with someone you don’t love, so you do!” 

It was a childish conclusion, but… _Well, she isn’t actually wrong, I guess_ , figured Seox, who’s understanding of love and romance wasn’t much more educated than hers. Lyria was gentler again when she continued. 

“Djeeta cares about you too, you know. She cares about everyone, but she cares about you differently, that much is clear. Plus, we all think you two are cute, and everyone would support the two of you because we want to see Djeeta happy. She deserves to be happy.” 

She shook her head. “Not just her. You deserve to be happy too, Seox. Djeeta needs to know you care about her, though. 

“And…” she began again, suddenly much more shy. “I think we should be friends. You and me. Djeeta and I share a fate, after all. We’re a package deal.” 

Her shyness turned into a sly grin. “And don’t forget, if you hurt her, or get on my bad side, I can summon Satan on your ass.” She slapped a fist into an open palm in a threatening motion. 

She winked and laughed, and during Seox’s following stunned silence, took the chance to swipe at his mask. He sat, too shocked to react, and watched as she held it proudly above her head briefly before springing towards the door and into the street. 

 

_…Shit._

 

He fumbled for his wallet and called a waitress over. He paid his bill hurriedly before jumping to his feet – only standing up too fast and smashing his knee into the table. He hissed and ignored it, bolting out and after Lyria in a panic. Forget everything about Satan, Djeeta would murder him herself if he lost the blue-haired girl, currently skipping gleefully back towards the ship, to the crowd.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rub a dub dub thanks for the grub  
> 
> 
> Was this one shorter? I had a lot of trouble getting the ideas down for this part, so it took me quite a while, and I'm not very satisfied with it. I think something is missing in this wholesome content... Maybe writing ability. ;) Hopefully I'll be able to write the next parts with a bit more energy.


	7. Overdrive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monster.  
> Monster.  
> Monster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should stick a content warning here for this chapter, for blood/gore and violence. I don't know how to rate the severity. Sorry.
> 
> This part (and probably the next chapter) are a direct reference to Seox's rematch/uncap fates, using the direct EN lines. Read 'em [here](https://gbf.wiki/Seox/Lore#Skill) for the original lines, I copypasted some dialogue to keep it in proper reference to canon.

Things were more or less normal in the days following Seox’s breakfast with Lyria. He still kept to himself, keeping an eye on Djeeta from the shadows, and had even resumed sparring with her. The first challenge had come out of nowhere, a sudden request to practice, though she was clearly still upset. She’d charged at him mercilessly, and Seox, having dropped his guard around her since becoming more familiar, and who was supposed to be the strongest martial artist in the skies, was soon caught with a hand around his neck. 

The defeat was shameful, and embarrassing, but it seemed to have put them on even terms once more and Djeeta began requesting sparring matches daily – sometimes twice, at dawn and dusk. She seemed unsatisfied by her win while his guard was down, and relentlessly attempted to gain a sufficient victory. Seox, too, had been ashamed at himself for letting his guard down, and so he gave their little matches his full attention. She picked up the pace fast, learning at an inhuman speed, getting closer and closer to defeating him with each match. Usually, he still won. He was the melee master of the eternals, after all. 

 

Today, though, he had lost.

 

Losing hadn’t bothered him at all, either, to his own surprise. Rather, it had made him proud to see her progress more than anything. He would need to keep up the pace if he didn’t want her to surpass him.

 _I should help her get even stronger_ , he mused with a small smile as he stretched his arms forward to crack his back and knuckles in one go with a satisfying pop. _For when I’m not around… That won’t teach her impulse control, though, but then again... I’m the last one who would be able to teach her that._

He let out a contented sigh and let his gaze drift to the stars poking through thin clouds. Somehow, getting to practice pure technique like that, together, had put him at ease. Focusing on the movements, dodging and countering, finding openings, feeling the flow of the fight… In those times, his head could finally be quiet, almost meditatively, and the friendly setting and encouraging comments served with smiles and laughter didn’t leave him with the remorse that usually followed fighting. Sometimes he would even join in, chasing the girl and the lizard across the deck as they playfully snatched his mask (and, of course, pretending it was possible for them to ever have an advantage,) still embarrassed and flustered but feeling warm inside as Djeeta laughed at the three of them cheerfully. 

He sprawled across his back on the same deck, thinking about the day and the warmth it made him feel. It unsettled him, the fact that this warmth, something he didn’t deserve, _didn’t_ actually unsettle him. Not fully, not enough. Normally consequences followed and punished him for happiness, and he had learned to fear it, but for some reason he wasn’t afraid. That, too, should have worried him more, but he just wasn’t feeling it. The night was comfortably cool, not cold but with a gentle breeze the teased at his hair, the stars bright but the moon waning. He was considering removing his mask to be able to feel the breeze on his cheeks and in his lungs, too, when he heard it. 

The footsteps were faint, but they were getting closer. He snapped straight to attention, the relaxing atmosphere lost, and melted into the shadows and waited. 

Sure enough, the figures made their way onto the ship. Seox could barely discern their forms through the combined darkness of the night and the mask, but they radiated ill intent. His ears flicked forward, focused. One, two… Four sets of feet climbing. 

He suppressed a growl, staying silent in the shadows from which he guarded the ship that held those that made him feel so at peace. He knew then what he’d known the night Djeeta entered his room, clutching that letter – he’d found a purpose, and it was to protect her. Protect the things that made her smile. 

Thieves that made her smile at his expense were fine, and he would run with it and chase them if it made them smile. Real thieves didn’t deserve to walk the same ground as them. 

“This ship is huge... I think we've hit the jackpot!” 

“Don't make too much noise. I don't think anyone's up, but let's play it safe.” 

“Does it matter? We're killing them all either way.” 

 

He pounced. 

 

He made no battle cry before launching into battle, crippling each of them with the flat of his teko-kagi claws in turn with trained precision and they fell like flies. He panted as they fell, screaming in agony. The sparring must have taken more of a toll on his body than he’d realised. 

They twitched and writhed below him, struggling to get up. He watched them with disgust as they shit themselves in horror.

“Fucking monster!” One of them roared as he used the last of his strength to pull himself back up on broken feet. 

Seox snarled audibly in response, prepping himself to dodge the punch the thug was readying and knock him back down. He ducked and swung.

 _We’re killing them all anyway_.

He twisted his fists to change the angle of his metal claws, back into an offensive attack, no longer aiming for blunt impact. They tore ribbons out of the thief’s bicep, the flesh hitting the deck with a sickening splatter. He ignored the screeches that pierced his ears to use the opening to cross his arms over one another in an “X” shape. He ripped his arms back outwards one after the other, gouging out the man’s throat and silencing the screams, replaced with a gurgling noise that shortly quieted. 

He turned to the other three, now scrambling desperately away. Trails of the blood that flooded from their wounds where he’d snapped their bones followed them, reeking of iron and staining the wood below them. 

“Stay away!”

Their voices were breaking. One of them started sobbing, pleading for his life.

Seox dove. 

Blood splattered his mask as he tore into their screaming throats, all three in one swift motion. Lifeblood fountained from the throats of two, but he’d only grazed the neck of the other.

He pinned down the final man’s chest with his boot and stared down, directly into his eyes. 

_“Monster_ ,” the man rasped with his dying breath, but his eyes were gleaming with terror. “ _Monster._ ” 

Seox lifted his boot, barely inches, and plunged it straight down with his full force, shattering the man’s ribcage as his foot tore straight through his chest and splitting the wood of the deck in one movement. 

The man’s eyes went wide one last time as he choked, before they faded forever. 

When Seox dislodged his foot from the hole he’d created, his father’s face watched from the dead man’s body in silent disappointment. Right. He wasn’t safe from judgement from the living _or_ the dead. 

That was him. Their cries echoed in his ears, out of harmony, screaming in some kind of sick round. Their cries, the clan’s cries, the cries of everyone he had ever killed, even those whose voices he had never heard.

 

 

_Monster._

 

 

“I’ve never forgotten,” he murmured, barely audible even to himself, as he gazed down on his blood-stained hands. It still dripped through his fingers, seemingly unending. Right. Unending, from the day he was born, the monster left a trail of blood wherever he went. 

Voices sounded somewhere behind him, and he looked back over his shoulder towards the noise he couldn’t distinguish through the echoes. 

The three each paled at the massacre before them. Lyria even screamed, one more for the chorus. 

_That’s right_. He just stood there, standing on the deck but not there at all, staring through them. _Scream. Terror should make you scream._ I _should make you scream._

 

How could he have forgotten, how could he have let his guard down? 

 

Two firm hands grabbed his shoulders. He barely noticed, and didn’t process the face in front of him. 

The grip tightened as they shook him gently. “Seox. Hey, Seox. _Damnit_ , Seox! Talk to us!.”

 

He blinked and the fog lightened, if only slightly. She was standing in front of him. Why? He stood still but she threw herself at him at the first sign of response, wrapping her arms around his neck. 

He forced himself to speak. Somehow. 

“Why are you up here?” 

Vyrn was the first to respond.  “…mentioned feeling something off up here, so we came to check it out.” 

_Who? Oh_ … Her, with her arms still around him and her face in his shoulder, he realised distantly. 

“I see.” 

Lyria began to tiptoe around the corpses, still pale. They began questioning him, saying something about a wanted poster... Apparently he responded, but the words didn’t seem like his own. Djeeta squeezed him harder each time he heard the quiet words leave his throat, though, so it seemed they were hearing him – or whoever. 

“Huh? What was that, Seox?” 

Lyria’s gaze was full of concern.

“I said, uh…” What had he said? Right. That same word, that same phrase, the one that would never leave him.

“I’m a monster.” 

Djeeta pulled away to shake her head at him, her eyes watering. Neither of the other two, though, seemed to understand what he meant by “monster,” apparently, as they started shooting rapid denials at him.

“It’s nothing. Forget I ever said it.”

He took a step back, facing away and ignoring them.

“I’ll clean up here. Go… back to sleep.” 

Djeeta sidestepped around him, throwing out both her arms to block his movement.

“What?” He snarled with a hostility that wasn’t his own, couldn’t be, but had to be – the hostility of a monster.

She just stared resolutely, and dropped into a fighting stance.

Vyrn seemed confused too as he announced that it must be time for them to spar again.

Seox turned his gaze from Djeeta, to Vyrn, and back again, mouth agape. 

“Please.” Her voice was pleading. 

“You spar all the time anyway! What have you got to lose?”

Her. He could lose her. The lizard had no idea. 

She threw herself at him with a flurry of hits. Still not quite there, Seox was slow to defend.

 _Right. This is how it should be_. 

Monsters couldn’t protect, they could only destroy. He’d been foolish to think he was anything other than a threat to her safety. The best thing to do would be to disappear. Maybe she could kill him here and get stronger for it.

But no, it was clinging to life that turned him into this to begin with.

He took the beating, barely raising his arms in defence and making the laziest possible efforts to dodge. A fist collided into his arm, then a knee into his gut. He stumbled back at the impact, shoulders drooped. He raised his hands to concede defeat.

 

“Fight me properly!”

 She was practically wailing. The tears were spilling over, falling down her cheeks and onto the deck.

“Please!” She sobbed. “It’s the only way you’re going to understand.”

_Understand what, that he was a demon? A monster? He understood that more than anyone already._

Sensing his continued hesitation, Djeeta flew back at him, picking up the pace. A swipe at his mask snapped him to action and he responded in kind, matching her flurries of attacks with his own. His mind went blank as he fell back into the trance of their sparring matches.

 She grinned in response. They continued, dancing with their fists, both dodging and countering as they each watched for openings in the other’s stance. Seox still had the claws equipped to his hand, making each swipe lethal, but Djeeta narrowly dodged them each time with perfect timing. He lost himself in the fight, pushing harder, each attack targeting her unarmoured skin.

He was at a clear advantage, but she didn’t let up, instead meeting each clawed strike with a dodge and bare-fisted counter. She hit harder and faster each time, the skin of her knuckles wearing down only serving to increase her ferocity.

A well-timed kick forced the wind from his lungs – the decisive blow. It launched him backwards and his back hit the deck painfully. He coughed weakly, gasping for air.

Djeeta placed her bruised and bleeding fists on her hips and grinned down at him victoriously. 

“So?” She asked, sounding as breathless as he felt. “I win, then? Guess that makes me the real monster here.”

Seox’s eyes widened in shock. 

“What are you saying?” He rasped.

While he was pulling himself to his feet, Lyria and Vyrn, who’d remained silent while they fought, rejoined the discussion.

“Hm… That makes sense, I guess…” 

“Yeah… If you’re a monster, and Djeeta beat you, that means she can only be more of a monster…”

Seox stared incredulously. 

“No!” He shook his head desperately. “Not you! You… You never could be…”

Tears of his own began to leak, the warm moisture fogging the inside of his mask. The idea of her being a monster, of comparing herself to something as low as him, it was too much.

Lyria smiled softly. “Then you can’t be one either, Seox.” 

Djeeta nodded firmly in agreement. “Either you’re not a monster, or we both are together.” 

“That’s…” His mouth flapped open and closed wordlessly. 

They just stared at him with deadpan expressions. 

“I… don’t… What are you trying to say?” 

To his surprise, it was the lizard who responded. 

“The thing is… Every one of us knows you're super strong, but we've never thought of it as a bad thing.” 

“Of course not!” Lyria piped in. “Your strength has helped us time and time again. It's always a relief knowing you're with us! So, please…” 

Her expression was earnest as she spoke to him straight from the heart. “Please stop saying such awful things about yourself...”

“I… see…”

He sighed and let his shoulders droop once more, facing down while he contemplated their words. He was about to speak up when he first felt the presence. 

It hit him like a cold wind, sending shivers up his spine. His head snapped back up, alert. It exuded far more evil and ill-intent than the thieves, more than what he’d decimated the group for.

 

_Never for…get… you…_

 

He stared around wildly, searching for the source, but surprising the others. 

“What is that?” He hissed. 

“What’s wrong?” Vyrn asked, concern on his face, but the noise startled Seox. He jumped out of his skin with a small shout and the presence vanished. 

He glanced around more, wondering where it had come from, or if he’d imagined it. 

“Seox?” Lyria echoed Vyrn’s concern. 

He shook his head. “Nevermind. It’s nothing.” He had no intention of worrying them with what he’d heard.

Vyrn shrugged it off and continued, repeating again that he didn’t believe Seox was a monster. 

“After all…” 

“Huh?” 

Vyrn gave a cheeky grin and moved closer. “Without this mask…” He made a swipe at it.

“S-stop!” Seox batted away the lizard like a fly. “Keep your hands off me!” 

Vyrn toppled backwards, but had maintained his grasp on the mask, and hovered above Seox, holding it out of his reach.

Seox threw an arm over his face, trying to hide his puffy eyes the tears he’d shed. The others just laughed, assuming it was like any other day that this happened. He stepped backwards, ready to abandon the mask to save his dignity. 

“You see?” Vyrn teased. “There's no such thing as a monster who'd run in fear of having its mask taken off.” 

“D-don’t come any closer!” Seox insisted, eager to escape this embarrassment. 

The red dragon (lizard) took that to mean the opposite, and flew towards him. Seox screeched and pulled away, but Vyrn just kept chasing him, eager to play. 

Lyria and Djeeta just watched on with light-hearted amusement, until the girl let out a loud yawn. Djeeta patted her on the head and called out to Vyrn to give the mask back already. 

“You two should head back to bed. I’ll help clean up out here.” 

The two obliged and made their way back inside, Vyrn just dropping the mask in Seox’s general direction.  He dove to catch it before it hit the deck.

With the mask firmly in place, he turned to face Djeeta. She nodded at him silently and placed a hand on his arm, leading him back towards the pile of bodies.

“Man, you broke the wood? Rackham’s gonna be pissed… Fix it next time we’re in Golonzo…” 

Seox barely heard her. Facing the dead again had made him pale and numb once more. Had he really brutalised them that bad? They said he wasn’t a monster, but this was definitely the work of one. It looked like a wild beast had invaded. 

The ship was ported on the edge of an island, and at her signal, Seox helped Djeeta drag the bodies one by one to dump them over the other side of the ship. They tumbled down, disappearing into the abyss of the sky. 

He just stood, staring into that abyss. Djeeta just moved beside him to stare alongside him, and placed a hand on his shoulder. They stayed silent like that, the night silent, the breeze still cool and gentle. At some point, the clouds had thickened and it got colder, and the breeze began to carry tiny drops of water to pelt at their exposed skin. Djeeta sneezed and pulled closer to him, wrapping herself around his arm tighter and ignoring the drying blood that transferred to her own clothes.

 “C’mon,” she murmured, pulling him away. “Come clean up.”

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

She’d led him through the pitch black back to her own quarters, and he sat shirtless on a wooden stool in her private washroom. 

A bucket of water was dumped over his head. It was warm, but it made him shiver, and he impulsively shook the excess from his hair and ears.

“Pfpfpfpffpfpffpf” Djeeta spluttered as she took a face full of it. 

“Sorry.” 

“It’s fine,” she laughed, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. “I’ll warn you next time.”

His ears flattened in relaxation as she massaged the shampoo into his scalp. She hummed quietly while she gently scrubbed the dried blood from his locks. She continued for much longer than necessary, shamelessly enjoying herself. While he still wasn’t particularly responsive, he seemed to be enjoying it at least somewhat, pushing back into her fingers while she massaged his scalp. The foam had turned pink, though, and needed rinsing. 

She gently prompted him to tilt hit head back. He obliged, letting her gently pout the water over his head, carefully avoiding his face and ears. She ran her fingers through one last time to make sure it was properly rinsed, and let out a little happy noise. 

“You should wash it more, yknow,” she teased. “Do you want me to leave so you can wash yourself or do I need to do it for you?”

He didn’t respond. _Guess not_. She sighed. 

“Oi.” Djeeta snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Undress.”

 

“Huh?”

 

For the first time, Seox seemed to realise where he was, and his face turned bright red.

“I, uh- Wait, uh, what? Why?” 

Djeeta sighed and pushed the wash bucket into his hands.

“I did your hair, but you’re still covered in blood. You need to clean yourself up and come to bed.” 

_To... bed..._ She’d spoken without thinking, but truthfully, she had no intention of letting him be alone.

She felt her face turning pink, but Seox was a deeper shade of red.

“W-what about you?” He stuttered.

Djeeta explained that the shampoo had cleaned the blood from her own hands, so she mostly just needed to change and could clean up properly in the morning. She wanted to get to bed before the sun came up, so she didn’t wait for a response before leaving the washroom and shutting the door behind her.

She let out a sigh of relief. It seemed Seox should be fine, but she didn’t want to leave him alone... And she, too, didn’t want to be alone. _He thinks he’s a monster_ , she thought while she stripped. _That probably explains a lot. He hates himself for being strong._

Djeeta fumbled through her draws, looking for something to change into. She could hear water running from Seox cleaning himself and tried not to think about him also being naked on the other side of the door. She pulled on a slip nightgown and climbed into bed to wait. 

She couldn’t help but bite her lip when Seox returned, topless and maskless, his hair still damp. It wasn’t the right time to be thinking about anything beyond how attractive he looked, but she could still appreciate it. Djeeta held out her arms towards him and he moved towards her willingly, a shock in its own right. He crawled in under the blankets beside her, and she brushed his hair from his face to look him in eyes. He smiled gently back at her. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him smile like that… at least while awake. She wondered if his heart was pounding as hard as hers. _No monster could be this cute_ , she thought, and used a hand to pull his hand closer to place a soft kiss upon his forehead. When she pulled back, he snuggled into her neck, so she held him there by gently stroking the fur of his ears. 

“Are you feeling any better?” She asked quietly. 

He didn’t respond, but he groped around to find her hand, and gave it a little squeeze before pulling it between them to hold against his chest. They weren’t like that for long, though, before he interrupted the silence.

“I’m sorry.” His voice was small, just above a whisper.

“For earlier? You guarded the ship like any of us would have done. I should be thanking you.” _Maybe not so intensely, but he really saved our asses_.

“No… Well, that… I mean… For being me, I guess. Like this.” He hugged her arm tighter. “I shouldn’t make you feel like you need to take care of me like this.”

She scoffed and flicked his ear. “You don’t get a choice. Have you thought that maybe I _want_ to worry about you because I _care_? I want _you_ to be safe too, you know. ”

“I… care… about you too…” He sounded like he was forcing the words out, and he buried his face further to hide, which only made Djeeta able to feel the heat from his cheeks and how hard his heart was pounding.

“More than anything,” he added in a whisper.

She froze.

 

_Cute. What the fuck._

 

“No monster could ever be as sweet as you,” she mumbled after the pause.

She resumed stroking his ears in the following silence, keeping him close, in quiet embarrassment. She still didn’t know what had made him leave that day, but she’d taken out her frustration during their sparring, and whether due to his emotional state or otherwise, he was accepting her affections right now. And, she knew he needed it. She wouldn’t fool herself into thinking she wasn’t enjoying it too, but she could have sworn he’d seen tears on his face earlier.

He was calm, now, though, his heartbeat slowing back to normal. His breath was warm on her chest, and she figured he was falling asleep. Djeeta, too, was beginning to doze off, but not before the realisation that she was probably falling in love with a trainwreck. Honestly, she didn’t mind. She just didn’t know what the hell she was supposed to do with that knowledge…

 _What about when we find my dad? ‘Hey, dad, remember that assassin kid you helped out once? He turned into a socially anxious eternal that doesn’t know how to take care of himself and purrs if you scratch his ears the right way. Also, we sleep together.’_ The situation her sleepy mind was creating made her chuckle out loud. _Would you approve? Not that it would matter. Someone not around doesn’t get a say in my relationships anyway._

 

When the sun rose, they were still snoozing away in each other’s arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to end this chap with fluff, but tbh had trouble getting it to flow in character, six is pretty much still stuck in his head. Make it fluffier in your mind. 
> 
> “You see?” Vyrn teased. “There's no such thing as a monster who'd run in fear of having its mask taken off.” Uhh. What about Melleau's cat thing, Sachy? It wouldn't run in fear but . . . . .


End file.
